But it appears that these conditions were of no consequence to the people who just wanted to burn their rubbish, mostly green materials with no regard for their neighbours or the rest of our community.
They are not all completely stupid so I must conclude that most of them simply don't care as long as their rubbish pile gets burnt regardless of the conditions and the effect on our environment.
And it's not just fruit growers, many of whom are trying hard to do the right thing, but also the many urbanites and "life stylers" who on their own are quite small but when they collectively burn have a huge damaging effect on our air quality .
Every day this month we have had up to 12 large open fires burning on the plains and many of them were illegal.
Our compliance team has been run off its feet and has issued several prosecutions but the team just can't get to them all as the abuse is so widespread.
So last week huge plumes of smoke were a regular feature across the Heretaunga Plains destroying otherwise beautiful days.
Rex Graham: "Our compliance team has been run off its feet and has issued several prosecutions but the team just can't get to them all as the abuse is so widespread."
And it's not just the smoke, which is bad enough, but it's the invisible dangerous particles that spread across the plain with the smoke, making life unbearable, not to mention dangerous for our region's asthmatics and people with respiratory conditions.
I have had calls from older people who are literally locked in their homes and parents watching kids' sport being affected by toxic smoke.
Heretaunga is an especially dangerous place to be in when this activity is occurring as it's a large flat plain and the smoke gets trapped in the inversion layer, and without wind it will sit there for a very long time.
I have been on about this danger to our health for some years now and did think that we could control this with good information, consultation, duty to your community and common sense but this tactic has clearly failed.
Well, I have had enough of this talk fest and compromise as whilst many people are doing their best and trying new alternatives others are still shamelessly polluting our air.
And, before all those naysayers go on about me being a hypocrite, because I used to burn orchard piles, let's get the record straight.
Of course, I used to burn orchard piles and garden rubbish and I also used to use organic phosphate and smoke in cars, restaurants and on planes but life evolves and we all learn that none of this was actually a very good idea.
Polluting the air with dangerous particles through large-scale outside burning (cumulative or otherwise) is banned in most civilised countries in the world and it's time we grew up here.
We all share the air that we breathe and no one person has a right to destroy the air quality for others, especially those who are already struggling with respiratory conditions
