Wildfire smoke leads to health issues, reversals in air quality
AUSTIN (KXAN) — It is an unfortunate aspect of the recent past that wildfire smoke pollution has increased. It should be noted that this isn’t just a western states problem. It just seems like there are always wildfires in California but that simply isn’t the case.
It’s not the United States that has seen these wildfires but also Canada. Smoke exposure destroyed records in 2023 in part due to the smoke from Canada’s worst wildfire season on record as the smoke traveled over the heavy-populated areas in the eastern part of the United States.
So far this year, Canadian fires have destroyed an area more than double the country’s 10-year average. The continued outpouring of the smoke has spread to the Upper Midwest and parts of the Northeast.
The wildfires have contributed to an increase in the number of annual smoke days. In Texas, the increase has been as little as 20 days in the west to anywhere from 60 to 80 days along the Louisiana border. Central Texas has seen an average of 40 to 60 days.
How does this affect us? Smoke from the sky filters down to where we are and can wind up in the lungs. Wildfire smoke is made up of a mixture of gaseous pollutants like carbon monoxide, hazard air pollutants, water vapor and particle pollution like we see when the African dust settles in during the summer. It’s the particulate matter that makes up the main component of wildfire smoke that creates the public health threat.
Did you know the air we breathe indoors and outdoors contains particle pollution? The particles have little trouble getting inside the home and other buildings. According to Climate Central, an ongoing wildfire produces concentrations of particles that increase in the air to where that particle pollution is visible to the naked eye.
New research done by Climate Central shows people in parts of the United States are breathing in four times more harmful smoke since 2020 than the time period starting in 2006 and ending in 2019.
The research also shows wildfire smoke caused 164,000 premature deaths in our country from 2006 to 2020.
Given the right wind conditions wildfire smoke can travel hundreds to even thousands of miles away. Hotter and drier weather conditions are responsible for providing the fuel for bigger and more intense fires. This creates yet another problem that goes beyond human impact.
The rise in wildfire smoke in the last 10 years is responsible for stalling or reversing air quality improvements in 30 states. Climate Central reports air quality has had the greatest adverse effect in most of California, Oregon and Washington. For the country as a whole, if these trends continue, they threaten to undo years of air quality improvements under the Clean Air Act.
