Meeting ‘Spare the Air’ challenges posed by wildfires

This November, the Bay Area Air District took important action towards protecting Bay Area residents — including residents of Marin County — from the catastrophic air quality impacts of wildfire smoke.

The last several years have demonstrated how quickly and dramatically air quality can deteriorate when wildfires rage in our region, leaving residents near and far facing near-disastrous breathing conditions.

With climate change increasing wildfire risk, and with greater and greater knowledge of health impacts associated with wood smoke, the Air District’s Board of Directors recently approved two rule changes as part of a groundbreaking program designed to help the Bay Area prevent, prepare for and mitigate the impact of wildfire smoke on the health of our precious communities.

These amendments extend our wood burning rule into wildfire season, giving the Air District the authority to ban wood burning on any days throughout the year when smoke causes fine particle pollution to reach unhealthy levels. Previously, wood burning was only prohibited when Winter Spare the Air Alerts were issued between the months of November and February. (It should be noted that the Air District does provide for an exemption to the ban during PG&E’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs or any other loss of power, or when there is no alternate form of heat available.) The recently passed amendments also waive fees for prescribed burns of natural vegetation aligning “open burn” regulations with the state of California’s wildfire fuel-reduction efforts.

These amendments were preceded by a broad outreach effort that was undertaken to get input and spread the word to communities throughout the region. This effort included a heavily advertised public workshop in San Francisco, media advisories, notices in local papers and an extensive email campaign to regional stakeholders. We outreached to local public health officials and local Cal Fire units as we sought to draft amendments that helped support their respective missions while aligning with ours.

These regulation updates are key elements in the fight against the fine particle pollution found in both wildfire smoke and residential wood smoke. Fine particles are extremely harmful to human health: they can cause asthma attacks, heart attacks and stroke, and they can decrease overall life expectancy.

In many parts of Marin,

West Marin in particular, wood smoke can be a major health concern, as a special Air District study in 2013 determined. Extending the wood burning ban during wildfire season will keep wood smoke from mixing with wildfire smoke and exacerbating already unhealthy conditions in our local valleys.

These rule changes are just one part of the Air District’s overall Wildfire Safety Response Program, through which the agency will work, among other things, to fund new clean air centers in our communities and develop strategies for improving air filtration at existing shelter facilities.

The agency has also collaborated with the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association to provide guidance that assists schools with making decisions about outdoor activities and school cancellations. This information is available on our www.baaqmd.gov website.

All wildfire safety response efforts will work in concert with the Air District’s ongoing policies and programs, which are designed to reduce unhealthy air pollution and the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change and increased wildfire incidents in the first place. These initiatives include working with local governments to develop climate action plans, the Diesel-Free by ’33 pledge campaign and a number of incentive programs that provide funding for clean technology equipment, such Clean Cars for All, which helps income qualified residents throughout the Bay Area purchase a new electric or hybrid-electric vehicle.

My term as chair of the Air District’s Board of Directors finishes at the end of the year. I’m honored to have presided over the agency’s board as it developed new policies and programs to address our changing air quality environment, with action to support wildfire prevention and the consequences of wildfire pollution.

The last several years have demonstrated how quickly and dramatically air quality can deteriorate when wildfires rage in our region, leaving residents near and far facing near-disastrous breathing conditions.