I'll have to ask the County about any regulations on wood kilns. I hadn't considered that -- thanks for the tip. That might put the brakes on pretty quickly.
I can live with just salt or soda firing, if a small / fast kiln can't achieve wood ash glaze. The video I referenced earlier did that on a fast updraft kiln, so I'm hoping that's in the realm of the reasonable. For wood ash I can always sign up for when they fire that anagama I mentioned! That one only fires twice a year, and there's a sign-up lottery, which is part of why I'm looking into setting up my own thing.