Wildfires
Wisconsin DNR issued 27 air quality advisories in 2021
Smoke from wildfires caused significant air pollution in northern Wisconsin throughout the summer. It resulted not just in fear that something might be burning, but in significant health hazards for residents both near and far from the site of the fires themselves.
Twenty-seven air quality advisories were issued by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in 2021, the highest number in nine years. Advisories issued in August because of smoke from the Greenwood Fire impacted more than half of the state’s 72 counties.
And although wildfires have not been a normal seasonal weather fear for Wisconsinites, experts say climate change is making them a more frequent problem, and this year’s air quality issues are only the beginning.
Wisconsinites, say physicians and environmental scientists in the state, should prepare for a world where smoke will make the air outside frequently hazardous to their health.
Joel Charles, president of Wisconsin Health Professionals for Climate Action and a family physician from Green Bay who now practices at Vernon Medical Care in Viroqua, believed wildfires wouldn’t be a concern when he moved back to Wisconsin from Santa Rosa, California.
But, he said, looking at the data on how much wildfires on the West Coast have harmed public health and the growth of such events in the upper Midwest mean it is a cause for concern here too.
“We know that there’s no safe level of particulate pollution,” he said. “If it’s to the point where you can tell there’s wildfire smoke in the air, your health is definitely being harmed by it.”
Unlike colleagues on the West Coast like his brother, Jesse, who practices family medicine in Winthrop, Washington, where dealing with the health costs of widespread fire outbreaks has become a regular part of the job, Charles says there’s not a lot of awareness yet about the hazards that can come from wildfire smoke exposure in Wisconsin.
“I have colleagues in California for whom every summer this is a conversation that they’re having with their patients,” Charles said. “There the dangers are better known, and doctors are ready to talk to patients about whether they should have their children outside when air quality dips.”
In Wisconsin, he says, “it’s just such a kind of new and unheard of thing that people largely, as a community, haven’t figured out how to navigate it.”
But this year, Charles said he saw among his patients the kind of symptoms he saw while practicing on the West Coast, from increases in asthma attacks to allergies, to heart trouble that can result from the inhalation of smoke.
“Some patients with lung issues were having harder times breathing,” Charles said. “Some of the kids with asthma were definitely having harder times with it.”
Long-term effects of smoke exposure still being studied
Jonathan Patz, an environmental scientist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said those effects are to be expected when wildfires blow your way. “It’s not rocket science,” he said That’s because of what’s known as particulate matter, or small particulate pollution — the name for solid or liquid substances that can travel through the air.
Some particles, like dust, soot and smoke, can be seen with the naked eye. Others are so small they can only be seen with an electron microscope.
Many particles are strong enough to be inhaled, which can cause short- and long-term health consequences to the people who breathe them in.
“These tiny particles can get way down into the smallest parts of the lungs and ultimately into our blood, and make people sick over the entire spectrum of their lives, from pregnant women to babies in the uterus, to the elderly,” Charles said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the immediate effects of wildfire smoke inhalation can include things like coughing, headaches, racing heartbeats or asthma attacks. It can also make people more susceptible to respiratory infections.
The long-term effects of smoke exposure are still being studied, but there is growing evidence that there could be consequences for the children of pregnant women who are exposed to smoke, and to others who may have lingering respiratory and cardiovascular problems long after the smoke has cleared.
And particulate matter that sits in the air as a result of wildfire smoke seems to have an even worse effect on people’s health than smoke from other types of particulate air pollution, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Communications.
The study found that at the same amount of particulate matter pollution, wildfire smoke was associated with more hospitalizations than particulate matter pollution emanating from other sources.
Patz said recent studies in pediatric medicine, using data from other parts of the country, are also showing wildfire smoke to be 10 times more damaging to children’s health than other types of air pollution.
With similar conditions, the same effects are likely in Wisconsin and those conditions are likely to grow as an effect of climate change.
That’s the case even if the wildfires don’t take place in Wisconsin itself. Research is finding, even more alarming, that pollution from wildfires can become even more dangerous as it travels away from its source.
That could change the situation for Wisconsin, where according to the DNR, air pollution levels have been trending downward overall for the past 20 years in most parts of the state. But an increase in wildfires, even states away, could detract from that progress.
According to a 2020 report from the New England Journal of Medicine, the duration of fire season is lengthening as a result of climate change, and that residents over 600 miles away from fires can expect to suffer the health impacts of wildfires.
“It’s climate change that is at the root of the issue,” Patz said.
Renee Hickman is a Report For America corps member based at the Wausau Daily Herald covering rural issues in Wisconsin. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at WausauDailyHerald.com/RFA.