As Calif. fires rage, air quality turns unhealthy
Parts of the Golden State are enduring the worst air quality in the world due to smoke.
SAN FRANCISCO – Kevin Galvin, a water conservation administrator who lives in the Oakland foothills, woke up Monday morning to “dry, smoky air with ash in it,” and the house smelled like the site of a campfire.
Many of his fellow Californians were breathing in that same harmful air.
The wildfires ravaging the state, especially the northern and central parts, have badly deteriorated the air quality over large swaths when residents are already at a high risk of pulmonary disease because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of Monday afternoon, about 30% of the Golden State had air that was considered unhealthy for all members of the general public, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index. That assessment included highly populated spots such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Fresno and the capital, Sacramento.
“The concentration of the tiny particles in the Bay Area is roughly five times the daily average limit set by the EPA. It’s worse in the Bay Area now than megacities like New Delhi, which are known for poor air quality,” said Coty Jen, assistant professor at the Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies at Carnegie Mellon University. “Even healthy people are reporting headaches, bloody noses.”
The EPA calculates a daily Air Quality Index based on five major pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: groundlevel ozone, particle pollution (also known as particulate matter), carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Fine particles present the most serious health threat, according to the website AirNow.gov.
“These microscopic particles can penetrate deep into your lungs,” the site says. “They can cause a range of health problems, from burning eyes and runny nose to aggravated chronic heart and lung diseases.”
The EPA warns that surgical and cloth masks and bandannas, often used to prevent spread of the coronavirus, don’t protect against smoke inhalation. Higher-grade N-95 masks do to a large extent, but they’re in short supply and mostly reserved for medical workers.
The California Air Resources Board advises people in the affected areas to stay inside with their windows and doors shut, run air conditioners in the recirculate setting and keep track of conditions.
Galvin said he and his wife restrict outside exposure for themselves and their 9-year-old daughter, Emmy. “We’re letting her go out with us on dog walks and to try to get some sunshine,” he said.
California has registered nearly 673,000 of the 5.7 million cases of COVID-19 in the USA, which leads the world by far in that category.
The prevalence of smoke makes residents more vulnerable to the highly contagious disease, said Dr. John Watson, an expert on air quality measurements and the impact of air pollutants at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada.
“Anecdotally, what you’re seeing is people’s systems are becoming more sensitive to (the coronavirus),” Watson said. “They’re going to be more prone to have more damage.”
A red alert prompted by forecasts of lightning strikes – a rare occurrence in Northern California that sparked the spate of wildfires a week ago – was called off Monday. That led to a major sigh of relief for the area, where overwhelmed and undermanned firefighters have battled the blazes nonstop.