High River council's decided not to make changes to the rules around recreational fire pits.

Malcolm Richardson had appeared before council's last meeting asking them to outlaw fire pits because of air quality issues.

Fire Chief Len Zebedee doesn't see them as a big issue.

"We haven't seen a great deal of problems through the fire department, through our by-law services in regards to fire pits so if there is an issue we can deal with it based on our current by-law," Zebedee says." Neighbours can phone in and we'll check it out and make sure the fire pits are built legally and they're burning clean wood."

It is fall and in the past people would get rid of the leaves by burning them but Zebedee says he hasn't had a call about that for the last 4 or 5 years.

He says the town provides places for people to take their leaves and tree branches to be recycled so there is a way to get rid of them without burning them.

"We had one probably three weeks ago where a lady had trimmed off her pine tree and she decided to burn those pine tree branches in her fire pit and it created a lot of smoke and it was early in the afternoon," he says."With-in three minutes of her lighting that we got a phone call at the fire department and it came in as a structure fire because of the amount of smoke that was coming up from behind the house across from a school. She was so embarrassed she put the fire out right away and decided to get rid of those three branches properly."

He says if someone has COPD or asthma and smoke is coming into their house it can be a real issue.

"I've sat around a fire pit and we move if we're sitting in the smoke, unfortunately if you're in the backyard and smoke's going in your neighbour's yard, you can't move, you can only close windows and what's necessary to keep the smoke out." he says.

Zebedee says neighbours should be able to discuss any issues they may have about backyard fires but he says if there is an issue they'll come out and make sure by-laws are being adhered to.

He doesn't foresee the day when fire pits will go away, noting Calgary only gets about 300 complaints a year in a city of over a million people.