I was burning in my fire pit the other day some small branches that had dried leaves on them. All 3 cars I had in the driveway got small gray ash remnants from the leaves. You see them floating up off the fire when burning, they all landed on my cars with no damage done to paint since they were cooled down enough when landing. I had to power wash my cars off. Had it been a neighbor burning next door and having all this ash float and land on my cars I would have been royally PISSED! So even if you don't let the fire get away from you ... you can still cause a nuisance for a neighbor.