Within our modern era, we’ve not witnessed the level of destruction in a major metropolitan area that’s happening in Los Angeles due to the spread and almost impossible containment of wildfires. And while the fires themselves are incredibly dangerous and have claimed many lives along with homes and businesses, another potential danger to the 20 million people who call Southern California home — and possibly others that live miles away — is the enormous amount of smoke being produced by the flames. Those in L.A. and surrounding areas could experience severe respiratory issues as a result of inhaling this toxic smoke.
An assistant professor from the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences says the wildfire smoke is “super toxic” to the lungs.
The most dangerous component of wildfire smoke is fine particle pollution, also known as PM2.5 or soot. These tiny particles, smaller than one 20th the width of a human hair, can, if inhaled, become embedded in the bloodstream and lungs. It is estimated that about one-third of all particulate matter pollution in the US now comes from wildfire smoke.
“Wildfire smoke is super toxic to the lungs, more so than ‘regular’ smoke, because of the concentrations of fine particulates,” said Don McKenzie, an assistant professor at the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.
The cause of the respiratory issues stems from the tiny particles from the smoke getting trapped in the tissue of your lungs, which causes distress and a whole host of other health issues.
The cause for concern is, “the main component of smoke is particulate matter and that can penetrate deep into the lungs, which directly causes respiratory issues but it can also enter the bloodstream where it can cause a range of other health issues,” said Anne Kelsey Lamb, director of Regional Asthma Management and Prevention.
Wildfire smoke can be extremely harmful to the lungs of at-risk people who include, children whose lungs are still developing, pregnant women, older adults, those with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic heart disease or diabetes, according to the American Lung Association. Exposure to air pollution like wildfire smoke can also lead to the onset of asthma in otherwise healthy people, Lamb said.
So what’s making this smoke so toxic? The smoke being produced by the wildfires isn’t just coming from burning trees or grass, but from homes and businesses, which contained an assortment of highly toxic materials and we are now being told that many of the materials being burned up “have toxic effects that we don’t really know at this point”…
Joel Kaufman, a professor of environmental health and medicine at the University of Washington, explained why a wildfire in an urban location such as Los Angeles is particularly hard to predict in terms of air quality effects.
“What’s a little bit different in this fire is that we don’t really know the toxicity of a fire that includes so much in the way of buildings that have burned and anthropogenic materials,” Kaufman said. “What’s burning in the businesses and in all the houses are not the same things that would burn in a forest fire. Some of what’s getting in the air can have toxic effects that we don’t really know at this point.”
Experts are highly concerned about the plastics and the paint that’s being burned and releasing chemicals into the air.
Toxic chemicals from plastics, paint from the house and furniture are a few examples of what has been burned and is being released in the air, said Anthony Wexler, director of the Air Quality Research Center at UC Davis. Researchers are still working to understand the relative toxicity of these specific chemical pollutants during a fire event.
When a similar situation involving wildfires happened in Canada back in 2023, it caused “a dramatic rise in emergency room visits” in New York City.
In 2023, New York City saw a dramatic rise in emergency room visits, many related to asthma attacks, when smoke blew into the city from Canadian wildfires.
Individuals who live in neighboring states such as Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona could be in danger of having the smoke filter into their cities and towns, so it would be wise to take precautions.
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