The atmosphere above Christchurch, NZ tends to form layers in winter that trap the smoke and make this worse, and new fireplaces have been restricted to clean-burning log burners and dry wood by law.
It seemed like the biggest change in air quality in recent years came from the tragic earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 knocking down all the unreinforced-masonry chimneys, though.
Could it be an accent thing? Trying to learn foreign language pronunciation as a New Zealand English speaker is frustrating; I should not be pronouncing 에 as the vowel in “bed” the way I say the latter, but that’s what every description of it says.
It seemed like the biggest change in air quality in recent years came from the tragic earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 knocking down all the unreinforced-masonry chimneys, though.