“It is a sanitizing of beach culture,” Mr. Wagner said. “We all miss the freedoms we used to have. But when there is greater attendance at the beach, we do have to modify how we use it.”

This is not the first time fire pits have been targeted for removal in Southern California — but the last major effort to remove fire pits was only for budgetary reasons: San Diego cut the financing for them in 2008 as the city dealt with budget shortfalls. Private donors stepped in to cover the costs, so those fire pits were never closed, and the city has since restored the financing.

But smoke has become more of a problem since fire pits were first installed in Huntington Beach more than a half-century ago, when the city’s population was only a few thousand. About 190,000 people now live in the city.

Elizabeth Shafer has lived just two blocks from the beach here for three decades. But over the last five years, she said, the smoke from the fire pits has grown thicker. She now shuts all the windows in her house on weekend nights to stave off asthma attacks.

“There are too many people, too many fire pits. It’s all gotten too much,” she said. “I can’t even ride my bicycle down the boardwalk, because it’s right next to the fire rings and there is so much smoke.”

Some angry beachgoers have accused wealthy beachfront residents of class warfare — using the fire pits as an excuse to clear the beach of visitors who make noise near their homes until midnight on weekends.

But Barry Wallerstein, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates air pollution in the region, said the potential health effects from the fire pits are very real. Tests found that each pit causes as much air pollution in a given night as a diesel truck driving 564 miles, and harmful levels of fine particulate matter were detected in the air outside nearby homes.