Western Wildfire Smoke Reaches the East Coast
Wildfire smoke from hundreds of fires burning in the West reached New England on Thursday afternoon. A long tendril of haze could lower air quality in cities along the coast, including in Delaware, New Jersey, Cape Cod, New Hampshire, New York City and even parts of Maine.
Last summer, Canada’s record wildfires at times blanketed smoke across the United States as far south as Florida, and the current fires have raised fears that this year could see a similar intensity.
Where are most of the fires?
Wildfires are burning across Western Canada and the Western United States, where 89 active wildfires had burned more than 1.6 million acres as of Thursday morning, with the most extreme fires concentrated in Oregon and Washington.
In Canada’s westernmost provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, more than 600 wildfires were actively burning and tens of thousands of people had been evacuated from their homes, including in Jasper, a popular tourist destination.
Officials in both British Columbia, and Calgary, Alberta’s largest city, warned of deteriorating air quality levels this week. Some forecasts were so low that Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, called them “horrific.”
“A warmer world means more fire,” Dr. Flannigan said. “These fires are consistent with what we expect with climate change.”
A stretch of hot, dry weather that’s lasted more than three weeks has created highly flammable fuels that make it easy for fires to start and spread, Dr. Flannigan said. The fires burn across large areas, and they also burn deep. Larger fires with deeper burns results in more smoke.
Why is wildfire smoke dangerous?
The intensity of wildfire smoke pollution can reach levels much higher than that of ambient air pollution, according to Dr. May-Lin Wilgus, a pulmonologist at UCLA Health and an associate clinical professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.
When people breathe in wildfire smoke, tiny particles in the haze can penetrate deep into the lungs and cross into the bloodstream. From there, they can effect every organ of the body, including the cardiovascular system and the brain, said Susan Anenberg, chairwoman of the Environmental and Occupational Health Department at the Milken Institute of Public Health. As climate change supercharges wildfires, she added, more people are exposed to more smoke over longer periods of time, which could exacerbate the health effects.
Another important aspect is how wildfire smoke can affect people’s mental health.
“The impacts of having to evacuate, worrying about your community, your family and yourself, or maybe being displaced and losing that community can have mental health consequences,” Dr. Anenberg said. “It’s a really important effect of climate change happening through the pathway of these climate-sensitive fires.”
What can I do to protect myself?
Young children, older adults and immunocompromised people, especially those with chronic lung conditions such as asthma and COPD, are the most at risk.
So, too, are people who can’t avoid smoke exposure, like wildland firefighters, people who work outdoors or patients seeking medical treatment outside the home.
The easiest way to protect yourself from wildfire smoke is to stay indoors, close your windows and doors, use an air-conditioning unit with HEPA filers or run an air filtration system. If you need to go outdoors, it’s best to wear a mask, like an N95, that protects against fine particulates.
Though the focus is often on individual behavior or actions, “what we need to be thinking about as a broader society is how our contribution collectively to climate change is making this problem worse,” Dr. Anenberg said.
In order to protect from wildfire smoke in the long-term, she said, governments need to advance climate solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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