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For weeks in 2020, toxic plumes from wildfires turned California skies red and polluted the normally clean air around San Francisco Bay. The smoke was so thick that it blocked out the sun. Everything was a dark shade of orange, and particles from hundreds of miles away stung people’s eyes and throats for weeks. It was a terrible turning point.
Californians are used to navigating the smoke from wildfires every summer and fall. But in recent years, climate change has meant fires have become increasingly violent, frequent and prolonged, and their smoke waves have become as terrifying as the blazes themselves. For many, 2020 was the wake-up call.
That year, nearly 9,900 fires burned 4.3 million acres — the worst in California history. The fires killed more than 30 people directly. However, a Stanford study concluded that thousands more died from exposure to smoke, calling the excess death toll “staggering”. Largely due to unusual thunderstorms, a fire siege raged in northern California for nearly four months, flooding 95 percent of the entire state with toxic particles for weeks.
“We were really impressed by it,” said Amy MacPherson, a Sacramento resident who works for the California Air Resources Board. “The gravity of it, the enormity of it… Many people underestimate the damage smoke can do and how morally draining it can be.”
Like the smoke that blanketed the eastern United States this week, the fires of 2020 prompted many Californians to change the way they live — investing in better masks, tighter windows and air-cleaning machines when they could. While this week-long wave drew more attention to hazardous air, it hasn’t resulted in systematic changes to help Californians weather future smoke events, said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
“This is a very new problem that has gotten worse very quickly and the government is slow to act,” Wara said. “We need the political will to address indoor air quality and set new standards, and to do that, it has to be said that we need quality housing for everyone.” That’s a huge challenge.”
Changing laws and updating regulations about what clean air, especially indoors, actually means is an effort that also requires significant amounts of money. Given that the state is currently in deficit, it’s going to be a lot harder to justify spending on protecting people from smoke when we still have to fight the fires they cause.
Until recent years, public knowledge of particulate matter pollution was minimal and it was mostly up to individuals to determine if they were sensitive to hazardous conditions. According to one report, it became clear that many people did not have the education, resources or ability to escape the smoky air. The Environmental Protection Agency has also been actively trying to stay ahead of wildfire smoke wave prevention and help vulnerable communities understand and prepare for it, Wara said.
After 2020, state and local officials said they had expanded their approach to smoke and its effects, especially since 3.7 million people in California don’t have air conditioning, the highest in the country.
The Air Resources Board and some air administrative districts have created new tools and resources such as B. Infographics on what air quality readings actually mean, an updated Spoke Spotter mobile app so people can get alerts for their districts, and videos on how to create a clean air quality airspace in your home and build an emergency DIY filter.
The Bay AQMD created a program to provide portable air purifiers to lower-income asthmatic residents. And the Air Resources Board accelerated a pilot initiative in 2019 that funds clean air centers where people can go when they need a place to breathe. It’s a start, but only 50 out of 100 in the San Joaquin Valley — one of the most polluted regions in the country — are open. No one has gone online in the southern part of the state yet.
California is also funding more research into how smoky, hazardous air affects life. The Air Resources Board launched a three-year study to find out the effects of repeated exposure to these smoke waves on people’s mental health, their hearts and lungs, and on premature births.
Although legislative response has been modest, several new laws have updated potential safeguards. The California Department of Health and Human Services and Sacramento, where air quality is among the worst in the country, have had to prepare contingency plans for air quality and air pollution from wildfire smoke. Health and safety authorities have also updated emergency regulations for field workers, requiring employers to provide N95 masks when the AQI exceeds 150. If the AQI exceeds 550, the rule requires employers to obtain medical clearance to continue work.
Those steps are important, but Wara said there needed to be extensive updates to protect those most at risk, such as children and the elderly. The state has no program to combat smoke entry into schools, many of which date back decades. Seniors are often trapped in apartments and nursing homes. For them, there is a gap in ensuring safe conditions in general, Wara said.
“It’s one thing to have information and another to be able to do something about it,” he said. Health officials, he added, “basically advise staying indoors, but many people don’t live in houses that can effectively isolate them from the environment.” We don’t really focus on indoor air quality issues.”
State investigators have also found that dedicated air quality agencies could do more to address the problem. In a 2021 report, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office said the state could better coordinate its various agencies’ response to wildfire smoke and “provide more targeted assistance to vulnerable individuals.”
“Possible solutions depend, as so often, on the money and what climate protection priorities it should receive.”
Due to the state’s budget woes, officials have shelved efforts to open a network of community resilience centers designed to help people get out of the smoke and heat. Due to staff shortages, delays, and a lack of legislative leadership and oversight, the state has been slow to meet its ambitious fire fuel reduction goals. The Government Accountability Office pointed out that resource management funds — forest thinning and mandatory logging — made up a very small portion of Cal Fire’s budget until recently.
At the national level, the need is even greater. GAO, which investigates federal agencies, found that the Environmental Protection Agency’s “efforts to assist communities in preparing for and responding to wildfire smoke episodes were ad hoc…without a dedicated program or staff for that work.”
According to the report, the EPA also lacks coordination on mandated combustion strategies. The EPA needs to be more proactive and coordinate better with other agencies to reduce smoke, particularly by focusing on mandated burns that help rid the country of fire fuel that makes the fires more intense.
A confusing issue, however, is that the federal government’s Clean Air Act impedes this ability. The 1970 law has not changed significantly since the 1990s, when wildfires were not as frequent and devastating as they are today. Therefore, the EPA does not include smoke from wildfires in a state’s air quality data because they are “extraordinary and natural occurrences” not legally man-made. Prescribed burns, on the other hand, are man-made, making them far more difficult for western countries to perform.
The California Air Resources Board said it is working to better coordinate with other agencies and pool resources to fight wildfire smoke. After Governor Gavin Newsom (D) established a new task force and action plan in August 2020, the Air Resources Board increased efforts to use more mandatory burns as a smoke reduction strategy.
The Air Resources Board is now helping Cal Fire and the US Forest Service plan their schedule to ensure crews “burn as much as possible,” said MacPherson of the California Air Resources Board.
But there’s only a limited amount states can do, Wara said. At the federal level, many officials still view wildfire smoke itself as a force majeure rather than something we can control, he added. “We need to fundamentally change the way we think about and approach air quality.”
