A great many people had their eyes focused last month on the dark skies overhead and were wondering about the air quality. In fact, a Google Trends report noted that searches on “Air Quality Index” spiked +600% in the US after smoke from Canadian wildfires spread across the east.
The U.S. Air Quality Index is EPA’s index for reporting air quality. The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of air pollution and the greater the health concern.
How big a concern is the wildfire smoke? The US EPA notes that “wildfire smoke is comprised of a mixture of gaseous pollutants (e.g., carbon monoxide), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) (e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs]), water vapor, and particle pollution. Particle pollution represents a main component of wildfire smoke and the principal public health threat.”
At the beginning of June, some 414 fires were burning in Canada. That’s certainly a concern. NASA’s Earth Observatory reported that the extreme fire activity in northwestern Canada most likely resulted from unusually hot and windy weather coinciding with a naturally fire-prone dry period and fueled by new fires started by lightning or human activity.
The smoke, however, was not contained to just that Canadian area. In fact, according to NASA, “Over the course of the fire outbreak, large rivers of smoke traced meanders in the jet stream, swirled into two separate extratropical cyclones, and darkened skies across large swaths of North America for weeks. Scientists even used satellites to track smoke injected high into the atmosphere by Canadian wildfires early in the month as it circled the entire globe.”
As the smoke from the fires drifted over the northeastern US, the National Weather Service reported that New York showed higher dense smoke particulates. As this plume moved overhead, visibilities dropped to as low as around 1 mile. Both New York and Connecticut then experienced overall low visibilities, poor air quality, and a lingering smell of smoke – and it kept moving. Many schools canceled outdoor activities due to air quality alerts that were issued to warn those with asthma and other respiratory conditions.
You can check the locations of active fires and assess local conditions and risks in your area via an interactive map of air quality data called AirNow offered by the the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA.
We’ve written previously about the health hazards from wildfires and about what we have learned from our geographic neighbors just how harmful the particulates from fires can be. When smoke from nearby wildfires reached Mexico City in a previous wildfire event, Mexican authorities declared an environmental emergency, as the fires pushed pollution to levels deemed potentially harmful to human health. Environmental authorities advised residents to avoid outdoor activities and exercise and remain indoors with windows and doors shut. It called for especially sensitive groups, including infants, the elderly and sick, to stay at home.
Wildfire research is being conducted to advance understanding of the health effects from different types of fires as well as combustion phases. The EPA and other agencies are utilizing emissions data, air quality modeling, and health impact analyses from studies that are examining the air quality and public health impacts of smoke from prescribed fire compared to wildfires. Social sciences, phone apps, animal toxicology studies, and more traditional research methods and technologies are being used to help better understand these conditions.
Fortunately, most of us in the U.S. are protected by highly advanced air quality measurement instruments that serve as an early warning system for air quality danger. This helps ensure that the air being breathed is being measured on a continuous basis. Although this monitoring can’t predict emergency air quality situations, it can provide government agencies with the information they need to help keep the public safe.
Additional Resources:
- Article: The Harmful Effects of Poor Air Quality Read the article to learn about the five criteria that play some role in deciding where and how monitoring technology is used, and how the recent air quality emergencies caused by wildfires continue to demonstrate that vigilance to air quality monitoring is critically important to public health.
Leave a Reply