Far from fires, the deadly risks of smog are amplified

It kills more people every year than car accidents, wars or drugs. This invisible killer is air pollution from sources such as cars and trucks or factory smokestacks.

But as wildfires intensify and become more frequent in a warming world, smoke from those fires is emerging as a new and deadly source of pollution, health experts say. By some estimates, wildfire smoke, which contains a mixture of hazardous air pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and lead, is already 675,000 premature deaths a year worldwide as well as a series respiratory, heart and other diseases.

Research shows that wildfires start to smoke destroys the progress of the world in the cleaning of pollution from exhaust pipes and chimneys, as climate change exacerbates fires.

Dr., a pediatrician specializing in asthma management at Kaiser Permanente in Southern California and director of the board of the American Lung Association. Dr. El-Hassan said wildfires “put our homes at risk, but also our health, and it’s only going to get worse.”

These health concerns came to the fore this week as wildfires spread through the Los Angeles area. Residents they started to return to their neighborhoodsmany were showered with burning ash and rubble to survey the damage. Air pollution levels remained high in many parts of the cityincluding the northwest coast of Los Angeles, where the air quality index has risen to “hazardous” levels.

Carlos F. Gold, an expert on the health effects of air pollution at the University of California, San Diego, says that air pollution in Los Angeles in particular is at a level that can increase daily deaths by 5 to 15 percent.

That means current death tolls, “while tragic, are likely to be greatly underestimated,” he said. People with underlying health problems, as well as the elderly and children, are particularly vulnerable.

Lisa Patel, a pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay Area, made smoke more dangerous this week in dense neighborhoods where fires burned homes, furniture, cars, electronics and materials like paint and plastic. executive director of Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health.

A recent study found that even for homes that are leak-proof, smoke and ash thrown inside can stick to rugs, couches, and drywall. poses health hazards it can last for months. “We breathe a toxic brew of volatile organic compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and hexavalent chromium,” said Dr. Patel. “All this is harmful.”

Intensifying and more frequent fires are increasing experts’ understanding of the health effects of smoke. “Wildfire season is no longer the season,” said Colleen Reid, who studies the environmental effects of wildfire air pollution at the University of Colorado Boulder. “We have fires throughout the year that affect the same population multiple times.”

“The health effects are not the same as if you had one exposure and then it doesn’t happen again for 10 years,” he said. “The implications of that are something we still don’t know.”

A 2022 United Nations report concluded that the risk of devastating forest fires worldwide will increase in the coming decades. Climate change-induced warming and drying, along with development in fire-prone areas, “the global forest fire crisis“, the report states. Both the frequency and intensity of extreme wildfires it has more than doubled in the last two decades. Average in the US hectare burned for a year It has risen since the 1990s.

Now, wildfire pollution is reversing decades of improvements in air quality with cleaner cars and electricity generation. Since at least 2016, wildfire smoke has eroded about 25 percent of progress toward reducing concentrations of a type of particulate matter called PM 2.5 in about three-quarters of states in the continental US. Nature study Found in 2023.

Effects of wildfire smoke on air quality in California offsets public health gains State health officials attributed the reduction in air pollution from cars and factories. (By releasing carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases into the atmosphere, wildfires themselves are a major contributor to climate change: Wildfires Devastate Canada’s Boreal Forest in 2023 produces more greenhouse gases (more than burning fossil fuels in all but three countries.)

Dr. from UC San Diego involved in nature research. Gold said: “It’s not a pretty picture. If emissions of the planet-warming gas continue at current levels, “we have some work that shows there could be a 50 percent increase in wildfire smoke deaths in the United States,” he said.

One silver lining is that the Santa Ana winds that have fueled the flames so fiercely in recent days are blowing some of the smoke toward the ocean. This is different from the smoke from Canadian wildfires in 2023 Dragged to New York and other American states hundreds of miles away, causing spikes emergency room visits for asthma.

At one point that year, more than a third of Americans from the East Coast to the Midwest were under an air quality alert from Canadian wildfire smoke. “We’re seeing new and worsening threats in places they’re not used to,” says pediatrician Patel.

Dr. Patel said the new normal brings changes to health care. More health systems are sending air quality alerts to vulnerable patients. At the small community hospital where she works, “I talk to every kid who comes in with wheezing or asthma about how air pollution is getting worse because of wildfires and climate change,” she said.

“I teach them how to monitor air quality and tell them to ask for an air purifier,” Dr. Patel added. He also warns that children should not be involved in cleaning up after a forest fire.

Scientists are still trying to understand the full range of health effects of wildfire smoke. A big question is how much of what researchers know about car exhaust and other air pollution applies to wildfire smoke, says researcher Mark R. Miller of the University of Edinburgh’s Center for Cardiovascular Sciences. recent global survey climate change, air pollution and forest fires.

For example, exhaust particles “are so small that when we inhale, they go deep into our lungs and are actually small enough to pass through our lungs into our blood,” he said. “And once they get into our blood, they can travel around our body and start to accumulate.”

This means that air pollution affects our entire body, he said. “It has an effect on diabetics, it affects the liver and kidneys, it affects the brain, it affects pregnancy,” he said. What is still unclear is whether wildfire pollution has all of these effects. “But probably,” he said.

Experts offer a number of tips for people living in smoky areas. Heed air quality warnings and follow evacuation orders. Stay indoors as much as possible and use air purifiers. when going out Wear N95 masks. Avoid strenuous exercise in bad weather. Keep children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups away from the worst of the smoke.

Ultimately, combating climate change and reducing air pollution of all kinds is the way to reduce the overall burden on health, said Dr. Al-Hasan said. “Can you imagine how bad things would be if we didn’t start cleaning up the emissions from our cars?” he said. “I try to think, glass half full, but it breaks my heart and makes me anxious.”