Smokey Skies Are The New Normal. Are They Making Us Sick?

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Smoke blankets Mill City, Oregon, which was evacuated for days following the nearby Beachie Creek Fire.

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Environment And Energy Collaborative
Why Firefighting Alone Won’t Stop Western Mega-Fires

Environment
1 In 7 Americans Have Experienced Dangerous Air Quality Due To Wildfires This Year

Record-breaking wildfires, like those the West Coast has experienced this year, have become a near-annual occurrence. Human-caused climate change is increasing the length and intensity of fire season globally. More people are moving to fire-prone areas. And there’s a growing understanding among land managers and the public that more «good fire is going to be needed across broad swaths of the U.S. to chip away at a century’s worth of accumulated vegetation in some Western forests. All of this means more people are going to be exposed to smoke more frequently in the future.

«The paradigm’s changing where a [smoke event] is not just this one-time disaster for many communities in the West, says Sheryl Magzamen, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Colorado State University. «They’re actually chronic disasters that occur every two to three years.

Smoke travels far

Days of thick smoke are not a new occurrence in many Western communities. But the breadth and duration of the smoke generated by this year’s fires is without modern precedent.

An NPR analysis of air quality data on the West Coast found that 1 in 7 Americans have experienced at least a day of unhealthy air conditions during this fire season. That doesn’t include people in less-populated states like Idaho, Montana and Colorado, where smoke was so thick in places that school classes, moved outdoors because of the pandemic, had to reverse course and head inside.

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Millions of people in cities small and large, like Portland, Ore., were exposed to hazardous levels of smoke for multiple days this summer.

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Tents of a fire camp, where firefighters sleep between shifts, is shrouded in thick smoke. On large incidents with remote field camps, many wildland firefighters get no break from smoke.

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In early September, Seattle, Wash., had some of the worst air quality in the world because of wildfire smoke. The city is among the first to create smoke shelters for the most vulnerable.

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A mountain peak pokes out from a thick blanket of smoke covering much of the West Coast.

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A mountain peak pokes out from a thick blanket of smoke covering much of the West Coast.

Nathan Rott/NPR