We have some of the worst air quality in the world: Did you enjoy your smoky hell weekend? No? Me either! The Air Quality Index in Seattle reached around 190 at one point Sunday evening. Being outside felt like being a chimney sweep trapped inside a chimney in Victorian England. Changing winds started moving into the region Monday morning. Hopefully, the smoke will leave pretty soon. Wish for a strong onshore flow. Wish for rain.

Tell us when the smoke leaves, weather people of Twitter: According to the Seattle Weather Blog’s crystal ball, the smoke might linger most of Monday before it starts clearing out. However, the AQI was already down to 100 as of Monday morning. That’s still bad, don’t get me wrong, but it’s better than 190! It’s all about perspective. 

Best guess is that the Seattle area endures one more day of smoky conditions before influx of ocean air clears us out late Mon/early Tue.

— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) August 21, 2023

Tokitae goes belly up in Miami: Tokitae, also known as Lolita, was the last remaining southern resident killer whale in captivity. She was supposed to make her journey home to the Pacific Northwest after 50 years, but she died Friday from a renal condition. Ted Griffin, the man who first started capturing killer whales to have them perform in captivity, bagged Tokitae and greatly depleted the southern resident orca population. He said he had “no regrets.”

Mass shooting in Mount Baker: A shooting in a hookah lounger along Rainier Avenue South in Mount Baker at 4:30 am Sunday killed three people and injured another six. Police recovered five guns from the scene. So far, in 2023, the Seattle Police Department has seized 869 guns, the highest amount in 13 years, KING 5 reports.

South King County has brain worms: Elected officials in Des Moines and Federal Way are working to shut down existing homeless shelters or deny permits to fully funded shelter projects because, as the Seattle Times reports, they “think shelter and housing exacerbate the effects of the homelessness crisis in their neighborhoods.” What???? I’m going to hazard a guess that giving people no shelter or housing will actually increase the visible signs of homelessness in your neighborhood and will not help find a solution to end homelessness at all! The state is investigating whether these practices are illegal since they may violate a 2021 law that requires cities have a certain number of shelter beds before regulating shelters or housing projects. 

Earthquake, hurricane tropical storm strikes California: A 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck Ojai, California on Sunday right as the tropical storm Hilary struck. Hilary’s path took her through the Inland Empire and then into the heart of Los Angeles, where she hovered above Dodger Stadium and Compton for a while. Then, she went back on her path up the border of LA and San Bernardino. The deserts are flooding, San Diego had the most rain in a single day since 1873, flash flood warnings abound. More storm updates here. 

Soggy Dodgers:

Dodger Stadium is an island. pic.twitter.com/g2mQrKzgS3

— Don Van Natta Jr. (@DVNJr) August 21, 2023

Here comes the mud: 

A wall of mud surged through California’s Sheep Canyon, carrying wood and debris along with it, as Hilary, then a tropical storm, dropped heavy rain across the region. https://t.co/Hlf8MSlN9S pic.twitter.com/mdtj3yWBEp

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 21, 2023

Is your package late? I’ll tell you why. A historic drought hitting the Panama Canal means lower water levels and lower capacity for heavy ships. To conserve water, the Panama Canal Authority “reduced maximum ship weights and daily ship crossings.” The line to get through the canal earlier this month was “backed up 160 vessels and delayed some ships by as much as 21 days.” So crazy when climate change interrupts the profits of capitalism, the very thing standing in the way of stopping the impacts of climate change. 

Russia crashed into the moon this weekend: Russia bungled its first lunar landing attempt since 1976 when it lost contact with its unmanned Luna-25 craft and it crashed into the moon. 

In case you forgot, here’s yesterday’s hell sun: This apocalypse sun knows that things can only get worse from here if we don’t figure our shit out: 

Just an orb on the horizon for sunset tonight. And that’s not dust on the camera lens. The thick smoke is making sun spots readily visible without a filter. #wawx pic.twitter.com/Dk86n2j34y

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) August 21, 2023

Don’t read this if you’re a nervous flyer: The US hasn’t had a major plane crash in over a decade, but close calls are happening way more often than we think, and the problem seems to be getting worse. Just last month, the New York Times found “at least 46 close calls involving commercial airlines.” These close calls seem to all be potential collisions with other planes taking off or landing from airport runways. They’re the result of human error likely caused by understaffed and over-stretched air traffic controllers. “The close calls have involved all major U.S. airlines and have happened nationwide.” Air traffic controllers interviewed by the Times said “they feared it was only a matter of time until a deadly crash occurred.”

In Maui news: There are 114 confirmed dead from the Lahaina fires, with only 27 people identified so far. However, 850 people are still missing. 

Frugals in Tacoma linked to listeria deaths: Three people in Tacoma have died and three others have been hospitalized after drinking milkshakes from a contaminated ice cream machine at Frugals restaurant in Tacoma. 

Big news for organ lovers: Surgeons transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man to see if the pig kidney would function. For a month, the pig kidney has worked like a normal human kidney and produced urine. Scientists will continue to monitor the kidney for a second month, but this is a huge scientific step for potentially easing shortages of transplantable organs with animal organs. 

Spain wins Women’s World Cup: Spain’s La Roja vanquished England’s Lionesses 1-0 to take home the Women’s World Cup trophy, the country’s first Women’s World Cup win. Olga Carmona, 23, was one of the breakout stars for Spain. She scored the game-winning goal in the final. Carmona’s father died from a battle with cancer two days before the match, but her family didn’t tell her until after she played. “I know you have been watching me tonight and that you are proud of me. Rest in peace dad,” Carmona wrote on social media. 

23-year-old Olga Carmona loves scoring a game-winner

Spain’s captain nets our Goal of the Day to secure La Roja’s first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup title pic.twitter.com/Lb5AoZt2t2

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) August 20, 2023

In other sports news: The Mariners are on a six-game winning streak and just finished a full sweep of the Houston Astros. Julio Rodriguez is so hot right now he’s had 17 hits in four games—that’s more than the entire New York Yankees team. Rodriguez broke a Major League Baseball record set in 1925.

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Nov. 2, 2023Updated: Nov. 2, 2023 9 p.m.

Fires in El Cerrito and San Rafael sent smoky air into San Francisco on Thursday.

St Lowitsch/Getty Images

Two Bay Area fires pushed smoke into San Francisco on Thursday afternoon.

The first fire was a prescribed burn in San Rafael’s China Camp State Park scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to the Marin Fire Department. “Neighborhoods surrounding China Camp State Park may see and smell smoke due to a prescribed fire operation,” the department said.

In El Cerrito, firefighters battled a downhill blaze moving toward Julian Drive near the intersection of Douglas Drive and Potrero Avenue, according to a post by police shortly after 2:30 p.m. At 3:11 p.m., police said, the fire had been extinguished and advised the public to avoid the area while firefighters continued cleanup operations.

Potrero Avenue between Navellier Street and Julian Drive remained closed during cleanup operations.

Reach Jordan Parker: jordan.parker@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @jparkerwrites

Jordan Parker is a breaking news reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle. He graduated from Sacramento State University in May 2022 with a degree in journalism. During his time there, he spent three years as a reporter and editor for the university’s award-winning student newspaper, The State Hornet. He spent his senior year of college serving as The Hornet’s first Black editor in chief, leading the organization to two Pacemaker awards and several other national honors from the Associated Collegiate Press. When he’s not chasing down a story, he likes watching movies, traveling and trying new restaurants.

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(SAN FRANCISCO) — A smoky haze is currently blanketing the San Francisco Bay Area due to wildfires burning in the northwest, creating unhealthy air quality for sensitive groups.

The smoke stemming from multiple wildfires that continue to burn in rural areas of Northwestern California is getting pushed southward across parts of Northern California, including the Bay Area. Much of the smoke and haze is located in the upper atmosphere.

Fire officials are letting them burn out since they are not threatening people or property.

The smoke was so thick on Wednesday that the San Francisco Bay Bridge was barely visible from the coastlines along the bay and the San Francisco skyline was barely visible across the bay from the Port of Oakland, ABC San Francisco station KGO reported.

The Air Quality Index for San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon was at 113, or “Code Orange,” signifying unhealthy air pollution levels for sensitive groups.

Much of the smoke and haze is located in the upper atmosphere. The National Weather Service has not issued any air quality alerts for the region, but the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has issued a “Spare the Air” alert through Thursday, which bans burning wood, fire logs or other solid fuel to prevent from further contributing to the poor air quality.

A fire weather watch was in effect for much of Wednesday for the North Bay Hills and Solano County due to gusty winds and low humidity. Red flag warnings were also issued for portions of Napa County, according to the NWS.

San Francisco resident Sarah Ryherd told KGO that it smells like a campfire around the city.

Another resident told the station that they had put a mask on after he began to feel the effects of the air pollution in their throat.

Some schools in the region canceled sports activities due to the smoke, KGO reported. The fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, contained in wildfire smoke can cause serious health problems if inhaled, especially for vulnerable populations, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Air quality will likely not improve in the region until Friday, said KGO meteorologist Lisa Argen.

Residents were advised to stay indoors and keep their windows closed.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

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Bay Area winemakers will remember 2021 as the year without wildfires.

In sharp contrast to the past several years, no Wine Country estates were destroyed, no Cabernet grapes tainted by smoke, no fermentations abandoned in the wake of an emergency evacuation order. Many vintners held their breath through the last few months, knowing that the state’s deadliest fire, the 2018 Camp Fire, wasn’t extinguished until Nov. 25. Instead, the region’s autumn was smooth and easy — a brief and welcome reprieve from the serial disasters that had led this industry to fear it would never see “normal” again.

“It really was a redemption harvest,” said Montse Reece, winemaker at Pedroncelli Winery in Geyserville. “We expected the worst, we were ready, and it was fine.”

That’s not to say that the 2021 vintage didn’t bear the troubling marks of climate change. California’s extreme drought drove grape yields down — so much so that in at least one vineyard, the grapes couldn’t be harvested at all. With no signs that the drought will abate anytime soon, grape growers are preparing themselves for another year of light crops that are more likely to mature in the frazzled summer heat than in the calmer, milder fall.

That larger existential crisis still looms. But for now, industry players are taking solace where they can, and many say they’re feeling grateful for the relatively breezy year.

Some winemakers had forgotten what it was like to spend the months of August, September and October focused on making wine, rather than on dodging fires and remedying smoky grape juice. In 2019, a significant portion of Healdsburg’s Grist Vineyard grapes went unpicked due to concerns about wildfire smoke; in 2020, none of its grapes was usable.

In 2021, finally, it made wine: “The feeling of being able to pick everything in our vineyard was so foreign,” said Woody Hambrecht, Grist’s owner.

The 2021 harvest season offered an inspiring reversal of the doomsday scenario that had begun to take hold. It turns out it’s still possible, even as climate change transforms the realities of viticulture in California, to make great wine here. Or, at least, it was still possible for one more year.

Winemaker Montse Reece holds a branch from a 100-year-old Zinfandel vine at Pedroncelli Winery in Dry Creek Valley in Geyserville.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

The blows to Wine Country during the past four years just kept coming.

In 2017, a series of nearby fires ignited in early October in Napa and Sonoma counties, burning 7,000 homes and killing 45 people. The Kincade Fire in 2019 enveloped the prestigious growing area of Alexander Valley in eastern Sonoma County; the smoke emanating from that blaze spread to other parts of Wine Country, too, compromising the grapes. Aside from wildfires, heat spikes during peak harvest time — in 2017, Reece saw temperatures surge to 115 degrees — created chaotic conditions, pushing grapes into overripe sugar levels suddenly and threatening wine quality.

Then came 2020, with its nearly unfathomable levels of calamity. A lightning siege in August resulted in major fires in wine regions from Sonoma County to Monterey County, and the early timing meant that virtually all of the state’s wine grapes were still hanging on the vine, vulnerable to smoke taint. Then in late September came the Glass Fire, which damaged more than 30 Napa Valley wineries, a leveling that the region had never seen before.

“We were all on high alert. We had this weird PTSD, feeling like something’s going to happen,” said Priyanka French, winemaker at Napa’s Signorello Estate, which burned in 2017. “But it didn’t.”

As the 2021 harvest season approached, anxieties were high. “It’s on your mind now every time you smell a fire in someone’s chimney,” said winemaker Steve Rogstad of Napa’s Brandlin Vineyard. “Six years ago, you wouldn’t have even noticed it. Now, it’s ever-present.”

Priyanka French, a winemaker at Signorello Estate in Napa, said the 2021 harvest made winemaking feel fun again.

Rachel Bujalski/Special to The Chronicle 2020

Weary vintners frantically tried to prepare. Groups spoke out about what they viewed as a broken fire-insurance system for agricultural property owners. Napa locals petitioned their county for the right to hire their own firefighting aircraft. And in vineyards throughout California, people cleared brush, trimmed tree branches, moved fuel sources like propane tanks away from buildings — anything to prevent flames from finding an easy path.

Some vintners took additional steps to mitigate fire risk. Hambrecht, of the Grist Vineyard, led an effort to perform controlled burns in rural areas of the Dry Creek Valley growing region. Over the course of the year, with the approval and supervision of Cal Fire and local firefighters, the group executed five controlled burns, adding up to a total of about 200 acres.

The idea behind these burns, which were practiced regularly by Indigenous people in California, is to allow fire to consume all of the flammable material in an area in a controlled manner, making it less likely that a wildfire would be able to spread there later.

“We feel pretty strongly that these controlled burns work,” Hambrecht said. “It was incredibly empowering. Just sitting back and watching everything around us burn” — which happened in 2021, he added — “is not a position I want to be in again.”

Controlled burns are not yet commonplace in Wine Country, but the idea is gaining more traction with farmers and other property owners. Hambrecht said he hopes more communities will explore the idea by talking to their local firefighting authority.

Not all California wine regions were as fortunate as the Bay Area’s last year. The Caldor Fire threatened the winemaking community of El Dorado County and other parts of the Sierra foothills; though no wineries were destroyed, vintners there fear that their grapes may have been unpleasantly impacted by wildfire smoke.

Winemaker Montse Reece (left) and winery owner Julie Pedroncelli St. John walk through a sea of old Zinfandel vines at Pedroncelli Winery in Geyserville.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Napa and Sonoma counties feared their time had come, too, when a Sept. 23 blaze ignited in an open field in Carneros, near the border of the two counties. Dubbed the Fremont Fire, it was burning near areas that had been engulfed in flames four years earlier. But the worst-case scenario did not materialize. By the next morning, the fire was fully contained. It had burned just 116 acres.

And last year, happily, temperatures remained moderate, allowing producers to pick their grapes leisurely. “It was like a Swiss watch,” said Mark Mazzoni, owner of Zialena Winery in Sonoma County.

Yet winemakers did have to contend with another meteorological problem during the 2021 growing season: drought.

The main effect of this historic drought on California vineyards could be seen in the crop yields. Less water means less energy for grapevines, which leads them to set fewer berries. Many winemakers reported that their 2021 grape hauls were about 20% lighter than normal, though it varied significantly by site.

On Napa’s Mount Veeder, certain sections of the Brandlin Vineyard threw only about half of the crop it normally does, said winemaker Steve Rogstad. Lower grape yields don’t necessarily mean that the wine will suffer; on the contrary, it can sometimes improve quality.

The severity of the drought has strengthened the case for dry-farmed vineyards, said Pedroncelli’s Reece. (There are no official statistics on how many California vineyards follow this method, but one expert has estimated that about 20% of Napa Valley vineyards are dry-farmed.) Dry farming means there is no irrigation providing water to the plants, which receive only the water that falls from the sky or is naturally stored in the ground. Grapevines that have already adapted to this sort of regimen, relying on less water to begin with, fared better in 2021 than irrigated vines, Reece said.

“We’re going to have droughts,” she continued. “In California it’s not going to be raining all the time — I assume we all understand that. Dry-farming looks better and better.”

“It really was a redemption harvest,” winemaker Montse Reece says of the 2021 season.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Still, the parched soils did not detract from the sense of joyful gratitude that permeated the wine industry as its busy season came to a close.

“The concentration of flavors is so intense, like I haven’t seen in years,” Reece said of the nascent 2021 wines. Her Zinfandels are exploding with ripe, luscious deliciousness, a reminder of how great wines from the Pedroncelli vineyards can truly be, she said.

Many winemakers got creative in 2020, repurposing smoke-tainted reds into piquette, grappa, vodka or rosé — making the best of a bad situation, essentially. In 2021, winemakers got to return to making normal wine, the old-fashioned way.

After all, the thrill of harvest season — picking the grapes and making them into wine — is why these professionals got into their business in the first place. “Before we got a hard dose of reality in 2017, my idea of harvest in Napa used to be this euphoric, amazing thing,” said Signorello’s French.

In 2021, finally, she felt some of that euphoria again. “You can see it just in talking to other winemakers here,” French said. “People are excited. We’re actually asking each other, ‘What are your wines tasting like?’”

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley

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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.”

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Smoke from Canadian wildfires is unsettling communities in the Midwest and Northeast United States, prompting changes in activities for children and warnings for adults.

New York City recorded its highest level of air pollution ever. Officials in both countries are urging affected residents to stay indoors and wear N95 masks outdoors.

Why we wrote this

A story that focuses on that

The severity of Canada’s wildfire smoke has startled the United States and could prompt eastern communities to learn safety lessons from the fire-prone west.

Wildfires can regenerate natural landscapes and are common in Canada. But it’s been a tough start to the fire season. Although it’s difficult to directly attribute individual fires to climate change, much of Canada had a warm and dry spring — a combination made more likely by rising global temperatures.

Exposure to massive wildfires “used to be something of a one-time thing,” says Keith Bein, an air quality researcher at the University of California, Davis. “Now it happens more often and almost every season.”

Veteran firefighters in the west may be able to share their lessons with their friends on the east coast. Preparation and public awareness are key, they say.

Wildfire Smoke Ready Week is held in Missoula, Montana every year. And in California, there’s a pilot program for public “clean air centers” for people at risk of smoking — similar to “cooling centers” that provide shelter from extreme heat.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires has shrouded the New York City skyline in a Halloween haze. The bitter air has reached the Great Lakes region of the United States and the mid-Atlantic, prompting public health warnings.

New York City recorded its highest-ever air pollution levels, surpassing levels experienced by San Francisco during the 2018 California wildfires. And the air in the country’s capital was rated “very unhealthy” on Thursday.

The severity of the smoke has startled communities far from fire-prone western North America, raising questions about local preparedness and safety. Here’s a look at the scope of the fires and warnings.

Why we wrote this

A story that focuses on that

The severity of Canada’s wildfire smoke has startled the United States and could prompt eastern communities to learn safety lessons from the fire-prone west.

How unusual are the fires in Canada and what to expect for the upcoming fire season?

Wildfires can regenerate natural landscapes and are common in Canada. But a tough start to the fire season has burned 9.4 million hectares in recent weeks — about 15 times the 10-year average, Reuters reports. The sparks are due to a mixture of lightning and possible human causes.

The scale of coast-to-coast fires — and the speed at which they spread — has been something unusual since at least the 1980s, says Daniel Perrakis, a fire researcher with the Department of Natural Resources of Canada. “There’s no way we can get enough firefighters to fight all these fires,” he adds. “It could rain next week, but possibly months from now.”

Ontario Department of Natural Resources and Forestry/The Canadian Press/AP

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Canada’s wildfire season got off to a rough start — with fires blazing across the country — partly due to a warm and dry spring. Here, on June 4, 2023, the Chapleau 3 forest fire burns in the province of Ontario.

“We’re seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted on Wednesday. Although its complexity makes it difficult to directly attribute individual fires to climate change, a 2022 United Nations report lists it as one of several factors increasing the risk of wildfires around the world. And much of Canada has had a warm and dry spring – a combination made more likely by rising global temperatures.

In contrast, through July, the U.S. “expects normal to below average fire potential in much of the Southwest, California and Colorado due to snow cover and a wet spring,” says Nick Nauslar, predictive services meteorologist at the National Interagency Fire Center. The Northwest, he adds in an email, “probably has above-average potential.”

How do communities deal with smoke?

Thousands of Canadians were evacuated. The wildfires are also worrying Americans throughout the Midwest and Northeast, causing school closures and early layoffs in New Jersey and delays in city flights from Washington to Boston. Officials in both countries are urging affected residents to stay indoors and wear N95 masks outdoors.

Andres Kudacki/AP

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On June 7, 2023, people wearing masks walk in New York. Health officials urged people to stay indoors or wear masks to protect themselves in cities hit by wildfire smoke.

As air quality in New York City reached “dangerous” levels on Wednesday, Commissioner for Emergency Management Zach Iscol called for solidarity.

“If you are young and healthy, please stop by your neighbors,” he said at a news conference. “Make sure they have the information they need to keep them safe.”

In Toronto, Samantha Green says that when you step outside, “it smells like we’re standing next to a campfire.” The family doctor calls the wildfire smoke a “complex soup of air pollutants.”

Regarding high-efficiency particulate air filters, she says: “People should stay indoors and make sure the indoor air is clean by closing the windows and using a HEPA filter if you have one – or at least making sure they have a good quality filter.” have.” says Dr. Green, President-elect of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

Experts recommend citizens check local air quality alerts for help determining their daily activities, such as whether they should go jogging outside. Canadians can see their city’s status using the Federal Air Quality Health Index, while Americans can enter their zip code into AirNow.gov.

Even with US firefighting help, it could take weeks or longer to put out the fires in Quebec and beyond. Meanwhile, changes in wind patterns will be a factor determining air quality.

Julio Cortez/AP

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Joggers trot along the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 8, 2023 in Washington as the sun rises over the Washington Monument and a thick layer of smoke from wildfires rises.

What are the possible solutions to contain the smoke from wildfires?

Exposure to massive wildfires “used to be something of a one-time thing,” says Keith Bein, an air quality researcher at the University of California, Davis. “Now it happens more often and almost every season.”

and region. He’s been answering questions from friends on the east coast about fire. This informal exchange of knowledge suggests the rest of the country could learn from fire veterans in the West.

Preparation and public awareness are key, western wildfire experts say.

“The worst time to respond to a smoke event is when you’re in it,” says Sarah Coefield, air quality specialist with the Missoula City-County Health Department in Montana. Her community hosts an annual Wildfire Smoke Ready Week inspired by one in Washington state.

“We’re trying to kind of flood the airwaves in early summer,” adds Ms. Coefield. Then, “locals start thinking more about the upcoming fire season — but it’s not here yet, so they have time to prepare.” She also directs people to MontanaWildfireSmoke.org for more tips on how to prepare, including how to assemble a do-it-yourself fan and filter combo.

Another idea under development – public “clean air centers” for people at risk of smoking – is similar to the way “cooling centers” provide protection from extreme heat. California has begun investing in these centers as part of a pilot program, upgrading ventilation systems and buying portable air purifiers for buildings like libraries.

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Smoke fills the air in Lake George, NY on Tuesday. The material in the air came from active wildfires in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada.

LAKE GEORGE, NY (NEWS10) — Skies in the North Country were soupy and gray on Tuesday — from reasons far to the west. Wildfires that first broke out in Alberta, Canada, have now spread to Quebec — and prompted air quality warnings for many parts of New York.

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In the North Country, residual smoke from these fires obscures views of the Adirondack Mountains — and bodies of water like Lake George. With Memorial Day in the past, the first few weeks of summer are here. As you keep your eyes on the smoky skies, you might be wondering: is it safe to leave the hotel and go to the beach?

“There’s an increase in wildfires, but there’s not a lot of research on the effects on skin,” said New York-based dermatologist Dr. Fayne Frey, who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancer. “While we know that smoke from wildfires can have respiratory and cardiovascular effects, the risk of exposure to smoke on the skin is a relatively new problem.”

The shortage of cancer drugs is now affecting many in the capital region

Some of the latest data on this topic comes from the 2018 Camp Fire wildfire in Northern California. Started by a faulty transmission line, the bonfire eventually spread across 153,336 acres, destroying nearly 19,000 buildings and killing 85 people. It also left an impact on thousands more lives.

A 2021 study from the University of California, San Francisco compared the incidence of patients visiting health clinics in the San Francisco Bay Area after the fire with those in 2015 and 2016. They found a significant increase in patients with itching and other dermatological conditions raised concerns about post-Camp Fire data.

Some of these patients had pre-existing skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis. The study found an increase in eczema flare-ups of up to 50% in children. Meanwhile, the number of adults with itching and no history of such a skin condition after the burn increased by up to 90%.

The data in the study was not all from near the scene of the fire in Butte County, California. Changes were seen up to a distance of 175 miles from where the fire was actively burning. For comparison, Lake George is over 450 miles from parts of Quebec that were actively burning north of Montreal on Tuesday.

Lake George considering DRI application

Unless authorities recommend otherwise, those looking to enjoy a day at the beach in places like Lake George can still make it — but there are ways to be smart about it. dr Frey recommends using moisturizer for anyone suffering from eczema, a condition that leads to dry skin and reduces the effectiveness of its natural barrier against fungi and bacteria. The better the barrier is maintained, the safer beachgoers will be.

“When you go on a long drive, you want to make sure your tires are serviced for the journey. If you have eczema. The same goes for your skin,” said Dr. Frey.

Ultimately, the same is true even if you don’t have an existing skin condition. Humid air means that humidification is not always necessary in summer. dr Frey recommends using a waterproof sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher, even when the sun isn’t directly visible — for example, when it’s being obscured by a cloud of smoke. It can also help to avoid the midday sun at its brightest and highest point and opt for outdoor picnics and afternoon swims. Long-sleeved clothing protects the skin and UPF options are designed to keep sunburn at bay while swimming.

Lake George is the eighth bluest water in the United States

The effects of smoke exposure now go beyond the skin to include respiratory hazards, particularly for immunocompromised individuals and the elderly. The DEC announced an air quality health warning to go into effect beginning Wednesday in various parts of New York, including New York City, central and western New York. Nordland was not included in the recommendation,

Frey is the author of The Skincare Haox, a book about skin care products like lotions and wrinkle creams. On Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. she will visit the Caldwell-Lake George Library for a talk about the book and her career.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Family-run small business Cigarettes R Cheaper suffered the biggest slump in its long history in San Francisco last month.

Surveillance video shows two cars parked outside the Richmond smokehouse during the night hours of May 31. A thief tries to break the glass with a tool before others finally crowd into the shop. Some burglars were already carrying empty pockets.

Once inside, the thieves clear out the shelves and toss whatever they could get their hands on in a trash can and what appears to be a bed sheet.

In about 15 minutes, the criminals stole 500 packs of cigarettes worth $80,000. They also stole the safe containing $20,000 in cash.

They left a lot of damage.

“So many businesses are going out of business or moving out of town because of this, it’s not safe, you know? Nobody feels safe. I don’t even feel safe here anymore,” said store manager Sunny Shakoor. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Even during the day they can rob me, they can do anything.”

Shakoor said the family opened the Geary Boulevard location about 30 years ago. They too were hit by burglars last year. He believes crime is increasing in the neighborhood.

“Because every day I hear that something is happening in this neighborhood. They break into houses because a policeman came here two days before. The police told me they were looking for two cars, seven to eight men,” Shakoor said. “Same group. He said that.”

Shakoor says thieves also broke into a doctor’s office next door that same night.

He said his family came to the US from Afghanistan to seek a better life.

“We come from far away to work and live here – $100,000 isn’t easy to pay,” he added.

Shakoor said the thieves stole something that gives the store about a quarter of the year’s revenue.

Since the last burglary, the family has spent thousands of dollars replacing windows and installing new gates behind the glass.

“I just want the government, the City of San Francisco, to pay more attention to businesses — the safety of people, businesses, homes, etc. — because we’re the taxpayer, you know?” Shakoor said.

Betty Yu

Betty Yu joined KPIX 5 in November 2013 as a general assignments reporter. She spent two years as a reporter at WTVJ, NBC’s Miami-based network, before relocating to San Francisco.

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Colossal wildfire plumes that can be spotted from space have erupted on several California wildfires in the past months.

The Mosquito Fire burning in Placer and El Dorado counties produced torrents of smoke that soared tens of thousands of feet into the air. The cloud of soot and debris could be seen 60 miles away. Smoke from the blaze blanketed large swaths of Northern California and western Nevada, resulting in hazardous-level air quality.

Wildfire plumes in the western US are reaching greater heights than ever, a recent study reports — especially in California’s Sierra Nevada.

“The higher the plume reaches, the more likely it is to be transported rapidly over large distances,” said David Peterson, a meteorologist with the US Naval Research Laboratory-Monterey who was not part of the new study.

That means smoke, carrying a hodgepodge of chemical compounds, wafts farther distances and impacts more people. Wildfire smoke can irritate lungs and even cause wider health issues, especially for vulnerable populations like older adults, children and those with underlying health conditions.

A pyrocumulonimbus cloud from mosquito fire as seen from the air of a commercial airline flight over Sacramento, September 8, 2022. Video: Courtesy Gregory Van Acker

“Once these particles enter our bloodstream they can pretty much affect our entire bodies,” said Rosana Aguilera Becker, an environmental health scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

The study, out of the University of Utah, used mathematical models to simulate plume heights for about 4.6 million wildfires. The analyzes examined burned areas detected by satellite in the western US and Canada from 2003 through 2020, during August and September. The researchers found that over those years, plume top heights increased hundreds of feet across much of the mountainous western US

But not all areas saw the same amount of growth.

“Sierra Nevada definitely stands out,” said study author John Lin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah. In the Sierra, the researchers found that plumes grew about an additional 750 feet per year. On wildfires like the Mosquito, that’s meant intense plumes have soared to some 40,000 feet.

Firefighters watch a smoke column from a distance during the Mosquito Fire in unincorporated Placer County.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

Other regions, like the Southern Rockies and Eastern Cascades, increased by over 300 feet per year.

This upward trend increased even more after 2015, although the results weren’t statistically significant.

This uptick in plume top height was accompanied by increases in wildfire emissions that cause poor air quality, especially in the Sierra Nevada region. As the plumes explode in height, smoke can surge above the planetary boundary layer, the layer of the atmosphere closest to the ground.

You’ve encountered this boundary any time you’ve been on a plane descending to land.

“If you’re going into SFO, you probably are familiar with the times when it suddenly gets really rocky,” Lin said, “That’s a pretty good indication of where the (planetary boundary layer) starts.”

Smoke that makes it to these altitudes — about 3,000 feet above the ground — disperses more readily due to strong winds.

The researchers propose that the increase in wildfire plume height is due in part to climate change: Drier conditions and warmer temperatures enable fires at higher elevations. This vertical shift gives wildfire plumes a head start toward sending smoke particles higher into the atmosphere, above the planetary boundary layer.

Some plumes make it even farther, past the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere. These are pyrocumulonimbus clouds, also known as pyroCbs.

“A pyroCb generally reaches the typical cruising altitudes of jet aircraft and beyond,” Peterson said. “So we’re talking 30,000 feet or higher.”

PyroCbs are similar in appearance to thunderstorm-producing cumulonimbus clouds: puffy and towering. A recent example is the immense plume produced by the Mosquito Fire, which soared to heights observed from airspace.

These clouds act like chimneys, funneling smoke up into the stratosphere.

“It’s a thunderstorm that’s ingesting smoke at the cloud base,” Peterson said. “And then it gets accelerated through that thunderstorm cloud and ejected through the top of it.”

The researchers identified increasing pyroCb activity within the Colorado Plateau over the study period. They also found a slight uptick in pyroCbs in the Sierra Nevada in recent years. Additional research is needed to get a clear picture of what’s happening with these extreme plumes, which are still a developing research area.

What is known, however, is that smoke that makes it to these altitudes can linger for months and spread over vast distances, potentially causing health issues for many.

“There is a great concern that wildfires will be — and are already — a major source of air pollution,” Aguilera Becker said.

Jack Lee (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jack.lee@sfchronicle.com

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Community Development Research Briefs

Author(s): Brooke Lappe, Emory University and Jason Vargo, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Download the full report (pdf, 1.35 mb)

Executive Summary

Wildfires, which are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity, are measurably affecting vulnerable populations, labor, housing, and education. This report describes how wildfire smoke disrupts various sectors of the economy across the United States. Wildfire smoke is a growing problem for groups that face greater economic barriers than the general population, such as low-income families, housing-vulnerable communities, and frontline workers.

Key Takeaways

• In the past decade, most Americans have experienced statistically significant increases in days of light, medium, and heavy wildfire smoke and decreases in smoke-free days.
• Increases in the number of days of smoke were greatest for the most dense, dangerous, and disruptive category of smoke.
• Avoiding wildfire smoke exposures is likely worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year to Americans.
• Increases in wildfire smoke are occurring in the nation’s most vulnerable communities, with disproportionate increases for minority populations and those with limited English proficiency.
• Frontline workers (here referring to those workers in outdoor occupations and often without indoor air filtration) are increasingly experiencing exposure to wildfire smoke. Smoke will continue to increase the risk of occupational hazards, decrease productivity, and cause worker disruptions in industries that depend on these workers. Adapting to these changing conditions will result in additional costs for businesses, consumers, and governments.
• Wildfires have increased heavy smoke exposures for young children and students in poverty. This could have impacts on early childhood and K‒12 education, such as disruptions in learning, poor academic outcomes, and increased food insecurity.
• Housing-vulnerable communities are experiencing an increase in heavy smoke days, especially in the high-cost regions of the West (The Federal Reserve’s Twelfth District). Wildfires are likely to pressure the housing sector by increasing housing costs and disproportionately impacting housing for vulnerable communities who live in housing types (older units, rental units, etc.) that are less likely to access protective adaptations.
• Dramatic increases in disruptive smoke overlap with eligibility for existing financing programs that could help build resilience to smoke-related damages. Programs that target low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color may have outsized importance in building broad economic resilience to climate risks.

Research Motivations and Methodology

Wildfire Smoke Health Effects

The health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure are not uniformly distributed across regions and populations. Certain populations, such as lower-income, children or older adults, medically compromised individuals or those who cannot avoid exposure, are especially vulnerable to smoke-induced health effects. Wildfire smoke exposure is associated with asthma exacerbations, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respiratory infections, myocardial infarction, ischemic heart disease, heart failure, dysrhythmia, pulmonary embolism, ischemic stroke, transient ischemic attack, out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, and all-cause mortality (Reid et al. 2016; Heaney et al. 2022; Wettstein et al. 2018). Such health outcomes as cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular emergency department visits have been linked specifically to heavy-density smoke exposure, which has increased the most in the past decade (Wettstein et al. 2018). Previous research has shown that the negative health effects of prescribed fire smoke are more pronounced in children born to black and Hispanic mothers, as well as children of low-income mothers (Jones and Berrens 2021). Our findings suggest that individuals who are experiencing increased exposures might also live in communities with limited resources to reduce the impacts of the exposures.

Descriptive analyses were conducted on the presence of wildfire smoke plumes and their overlap with population centers to describe the magnitude of and trends in wildfire smoke affecting communities across the United States in 2011–2021. These data on census tract–level wildfire smoke exposures were combined with information on specific populations to characterize wildfire smoke exposures across different socioeconomic groups.

To describe recent trends in wildfire smoke, a comparison of estimates in the earliest five years (2011–2015) to those of the latest five years (2017–2021) of the 11-year study period was conducted. Using census tract aggregations of the daily smoke data, the mean annual days of smoke were calculated and then used to statistically test changes in frequency of wildfire smoke plumes across the study period. In each analysis, census tract estimates of person-days or number of smoke-days are used as the basis for central tendency estimates within the county or SVI (Social Vulnerability Index) tertile. All analyses were performed using R Statistical Software (R Core Team 2021).

Wildfire Smoke Exposures

To obtain community-level exposure to wildfire smoke, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hazard Mapping System (HMS) smoke dataset were combined with population data from the 2010 U.S. Census. HMS data use satellite-detected fires with multiple daily satellite images and a combination of analyst examination and automated processing to record smoke plumes of categorical densities across North America. Satellite imagery that detects smoke plumes can reliably identify periods of wildland fire influence on ground-level measurements of air quality from validated monitors. Plume densities reported in HMS data correlate with PM2.5 concentrations, with concentrations <10 µg/m3 categorized as light, 10–21 µg/m3 as medium, and >21 µg/m3 as heavy.i

To estimate the sizes of populations potentially impacted by light, medium, and heavy wildfire smoke plumes between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2021, smoke plume data and 2010 census block group centers of population were linked. Daily smoke density categories were assigned to populations in each block group if a smoke plume from any time in the day contained the block group population center. The spatial intersection of HMS plumes and population centers is detailed in Vargo 2020. Block group populations were held constant at 2010 levels to quantify the impact of changes in wildfire smoke regimes and disentangle them from population shifts over the course of the decade. Populations under each smoke category were considered for each day. The resulting quantity, person-days, is the product of the number of people in a census block group or tract and the number of days that block group experiences smoke. Person-days by smoke density and smoke-free person-days were then aggregated across geographies and time periods for our analyses.

After quantifying and describing general trends in wildfire smoke since 2011, the same data are combined with information on specific populations of interest to better understand who is most affected by wildfire exposures and how those communities might be prioritized for climate-resilient community development.

What is a person-day?

Throughout the report, person-days are used to capture, together, the number of people and the amount of time spent under smoke plumes. When a smoke plume is observed over a population center, each person who lives there is considered to have experienced one smoke day. Suppose 500 people live in a population center; each time a plume is over it, 500 person-days of smoke would be tallied. This measure can be adapted to consider communities of concern—for example, to count frontline worker—days, student-days, or household-days of smoke.

A person-day is a useful metric specifically because it incorporates people into descriptions of air quality. It helps to give an accounting of the potential impact of smoke by capturing the number of people and the amount of time people may have been exposed. Person-days assign exposures at fine scale but allow for versatile aggregation and comparison of exposures for different geographies and time periods.

Populations of Concern

There are several community dimensions of interest relevant to understanding wildfire smoke exposure and the resulting economic impacts. The characteristics of people or a community (e.g., age, race, health status, income, occupation), social inequalities (e.g., social capital, political power, lack of access to information), place-based inequalities (e.g., rural versus urban, elevation), and adaptation inequalities all impact a population’s susceptibility to disaster events and their resulting exposures (Cutter, Boruff. and Shirley 2003). Although wildfire smoke events affect entire populations together, their impacts are shaped by the population’s susceptibility and its adaptive capacity. This report’s findings suggest that increases in smoke are occurring in communities with high vulnerability in the labor, housing, and education sectors. Communities with fewer economic resources may face more barriers in avoiding exposures during a wildfire smoke event (Murphy et al. 2015). However, this overlap of vulnerability and growing exposure suggests that interventions that target at-risk communities may more efficiently reduce smoke exposure, potential health impacts, and social and economic losses associated with wildfires. This report is not exhaustive in its description of populations of concern. Considering other marginalized populations, such as indigenous communities, is important for improving understanding of the impacts of wildfire smoke.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s SVI data were used to investigate populations of concern for wildfire smoke and evaluate characteristics that might affect the health risks of wildfire smoke exposures. All analyses were performed using the 2018 versionii of the SVI data at the census tract scale. Daily person-days of wildfire smoke at the block group level were aggregated to annual census tract aggregates and linked with 2018 SVI percentile rankings of four themes: (1) socioeconomic status, (2) race/ethnicity/language, (3) household composition and disability, and (4) housing/transportation. Estimates of person-days and number of smoke-days for each smoke density were calculated using national tertiles of the overall SVI theme and the four component themes. The tertile with the lowest SVI scores is referred to as having the greatest health/social “advantage,” and the tertile with the highest SVI scores is referred to as having the greatest health/social “disadvantage.” The assignment of tertiles using the census tract file (rather than other aggregations of SVI data) ensures that each tertile has roughly the same number of people. Additionally, specific components of the SVI (e.g., the number of persons without a high school diploma) were considered to examine changes in wildfire smoke among specific populations over the study period.

Frontline Workers

Wildfires have uneven impacts across the labor force and especially affect those who work outdoors or in indoor situations lacking adequate air conditioning or ventilation. Wildfire smoke impacts among these workers, referred to here as frontline workers, are expected to be greater than for other workers. Frontline workers are often paid lower wages, especially workers involved in food production and preparation or the movement and distribution of goods. These workers are also disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities. Migrant workers are also overrepresented in many of these frontline occupations, especially farmworkers and construction workers (Thomason and Bernhardt 2020). As a result of structural inequities, frontline workers have underlying health risks, low socioeconomic status, and reduced health-care access, which increases their overall vulnerability to wildfire smoke (Schenker et al. 2015). Frontline workers face increased occupational hazards, such as smoke-related health effects and exacerbated health vulnerabilities (Zhou et al. 2021), decreased productivity, and a greater likelihood of work disruptions and instability. As wildfire smoke increases hazards for these workers and disrupts productivity, the national economy suffers.

The contribution of industries to state labor forces and GDPs (gross domestic product), the percentage of workers considered frontline, and how frontline workers’ exposure to smoke changed from 2011–2015 to 2017–2021 were used to quantify smoke exposures in the labor force. The American Community Survey (ACS) five-year data from 2019 were used to enumerate frontline workers or those more likely to work outdoors and less likely to be able to mitigate their smoke exposures. Using estimates for variables included within the group C24050: Industry by Occupation for the Civilian Employed Population 16 Years and Over, the contribution of frontline industries to local labor forces and exposures among frontline workers were assessed. Among the 13 industries captured within the ACS group, frontline workers included in two occupations (“Natural resources, construction, and maintenance” and “Production, transportation, and material moving”) were counted as frontline workers and used with smoke days to arrive at frontline worker-days of smoke exposure. Four industries in the ACS variable with a majority of workers in frontline occupations were given special consideration: “Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining”, “Construction”, “Manufacturing”, and “Transportation and warehousing, and utilities”. State-specific GDP information was collected from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Table (SAGDP2N Gross domestic product by state) for year 2020.iii

School-Aged Children

The negative impacts on air quality make children a population of concern for wildfire smoke exposures. The development of the brain and organs throughout childhood and adolescence makes pollution potentially more damaging to children’s health, with much more long-lasting permanent effects, compared to adults (WHO 2005). Air pollution can decrease cognition and lead to poorer educational outcomes in the long term (Shier et al. 2019; Miller and Hui 2022). The economic impacts of childhood air pollution exposures can also impact near- and long-term school facilities and district budgets (Li and Jimenez 2022). A study of California schools from 2002–2003 through 2018–2019 found that wildfires related to nearly two-thirds of the school closure days and more than 70% of missed student-days over the 17 years (Miller and Hui 2022). Moreover, the study found significant negative impacts on academic performance among younger students. Another recent study found that the presence of wildfire smoke decreased students’ test scores, particularly for younger grades and disadvantaged districts. The impacts of one year, 2016, were projected to result in lost future earnings of more than $1.5 billion (Wen and Burke 2022).

Outside the classroom, school closures disrupt resources and services, such as meals and child care, and, as a result, students face increased risk of food insecurity and poor academic outcomes. Child-care providers and school districts with smaller budgets that serve disadvantaged communities could be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of wildfires because they often have greater needs and fewer resources available to address such issues. Parents are more likely to miss work to meet unexpected child-care needs, and households in low- and middle-income communities and communities of color are less likely to have reliable and affordable child-care options available to them (Harknett, Schneider, and Luhr 2022; Shrimali 2020). Additionally, child care disproportionately falls on low- and middle-income women and women of color, widening existing inequities (Shrimali 2020).

To estimate the impact of wildfire smoke on economically disadvantaged students, we used the ACS 2019 five-year estimates for the number of K–4 students enrolled in school and below the poverty line (variable group B14006) to calculate student-days of heavy smoke.

Housing-Vulnerable People and People Experiencing Homelessness

Affordable and safe housing is an important factor in dealing with many climate risks, as well as a commodity that is also threatened by climate risks. Homes are places of refuge from outdoor elements, such as wildfire smoke, and at the same time, fires pressure housing markets through loss of housing stock, limiting where new housing should be built, requiring retrofits, and increasing risks to existing properties. Lower-income residents will face disproportionate impacts due to the legacy of such practices as redlining, which segregated communities of color to neighborhoods that experience hotter temperatures and greater flood risks (Hoffman, Shandas, and Pendleton 2020; Katz 2021). Guidance for coping with wildfire smoke advises individuals to keep indoor air as clean as possible, often by closing windows and doors and running an air conditioner with a clean filter (CDC 2022). Lower-income households are more likely than higher-income households to live in housing that needs repair (Divringi et al. 2019), less likely to buy air filters, less likely to live in homes with air conditioning, and more likely to avoid running air conditioning due to the cost of energy (Hansen et al. 2011; English et al. 2007). Similarly, renters are more likely to be low‑income and thus more likely to rely on landlords to modify their homes to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Housing tenure is particularly important as a proxy for improvements and retrofits being installed, such as HVAC or window/door upgrades to control indoor climate. Few renters are in the position to invest in such improvements, and landlords are reluctant to pursue such investments (Melvin 2018). To consider the smoke exposures among housing-vulnerable households, estimates of renter-occupied households—along with cost-burdened (spending more than 30% of the household’s income on housing), owner-occupied households built prior to 1980—were counted for all U.S. census tracts.

The Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) were used to describe the overlap of smoke exposures with housing conditions that make it more difficult for residents to protect themselves (CHAS Database 2019). CHAS data are generated by HUD from custom tabulations of ACS data and provide estimates at the census tract scale within the range of the smoke record, specifically 2014‒2018. CHAS Table 12 was used to obtain detailed estimates of housing tenure (renter vs. owner-occupied), cost burden, year the structure was built, and household income. The estimates were combined with tract information about wildfire smoke exposure to describe household-days of smoke and changes across the study period.

People experiencing homelessness face a lack of regular shelter, as well as access to information and resources to prepare for and respond to wildfires, which amplify their wildfire smoke and health risk (Every et al. 2014; Gin et al. 2021; Gin et al. 2022). Additionally, many people experiencing homelessness are also working in low-wage, frontline jobs and thus represent a portion of the labor force especially vulnerable to disruptions from smoke exposures.  A 2020 survey of people experiencing homelessness in Portland, Oregon, found that 75% did not receive any information during wildfires and 69% received no type of help during wildfire and smoke events (Hines, Petteni, and Knowlton 2021).  Information on unhoused populations was obtained from HUD’s inventory of Point-in-Time (PiT) Counts assembled as part of the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (HUD 2021). Information about boundaries of Continuum of Care (CoC) were overlaid with census tracts to calculate the average number of days of smoke experienced by a CoC each year and to arrive at homeless-days of exposure. Although limited in their coverage, the PiT numbers give an idea of where the confluence of people experiencing homelessness and dangerous smoke resides. 

Community Investment Opportunities

Several programs exist to direct investment to the communities where there are concentrations of disadvantaged populations discussed in this report. Given the intersectional nature of many of the factorsiv used to describe those disadvantages, programs targeting low- and moderate-income communities and communities of color can be important for fostering resilience to many climate risks and other social determinants of economic, physical, and mental health. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is one example of legislation intended to ensure regulated banks help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they operate. Specifically, banks are assessed on their record of meeting the credit needs of the entire community they serve, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) also identifies tracts for its Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and those that are in Difficult Development Areas (DDAs) (CHAS Database 2019)—areas with high land, construction, and utility costs relative to the area median income and based on Fair Market Rents (FMRs) and income limits.

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) identifies tracts for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). To be considered CRA-eligible, metropolitan tracts must be identified as low (tract median family income less than 50% of area median family income) or moderate (tract median family income greater than or equal to 50% and less than 80% of area median family income) income, or be identified as nonmetropolitan, middle (tract median family income greater than or equal to 80% and less than 120% of area family median income) income tracts designated by the FFIEC as distressed or underserved.  Using CRA-eligible tract designations from 2020, changes in smoke exposures in qualified tracts were assessed.

Select Figures

The following figures are interactive versions of figures found in the full report.

Please review the related sections of the PDF (linked in each figure caption) for more discussion of the data.

National Trends in Wildfire Smoke, 2011–2021

Annual person-days of smoke exposure, 2011-2021 (billions)

Wildfire smoke exposures of all smoke densities have increased in recent years, with the largest increases in the most dangerous and disruptive category of smoke.

Source: Hazard Mapping System Smoke Product from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For more details and analysis see pages 11-13 in the full report (pdf, 1.33 mb).

Wildfire Smoke Impacts on the Labor Force

Each industry’s share of the state labor force, the percentage of workers considered frontline, and how frontline workers’ exposure to smoke changed from 2011–2015 to 2017–2021.

Table 1. The total labor force, frontline workers, industry-specific workers, and frontline workers for each state are shown below.

Source: American Community Survey (ACS) 2019, Industry by Occupation for the Civilian Employed Population 16 Years and Over; Bureau of Economic Analysis (SAGDP2N); Hazard Mapping System Smoke Product from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For more details and analysis see pages 15-19 in the full report (pdf, 1.33 mb).

Wildfire Smoke Impacts on Children and Schools

Nationally, there were 569 million heavy smoke student-days (grades K–4), with 100 million among students below the poverty line (Figure 5). Between 2011–2015 and 2017–2021, heavy smoke student-days increased 300%.

Figure 5. Student-days of heavy smoke for all K-4 students (light) from 2011 to 2021; student-days for those in poverty (dark)v

Heavy smoke exposures among vulnerable students have increased dramatically in recent years. Younger students (grades K‒4), particularly those in poverty, are most affected academically by school closures.

Source: American Community Survey (ACS) Five-Year Estimates 2019; Poverty Status in the Past 12 Months by School Enrollment by Level of School for the Population Three Years and Over (B14006); Hazard Mapping System Smoke Product from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For more details and analysis see pages 19-20 in the full report (pdf, 1.33 mb).

Download figures (zip file, 14 mb)

Download data (zip file, 29 mb)

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or the Federal Reserve System.

Brooke Lappe

is a doctoral student in the Environmental Health Sciences program at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding the links between climate and health. Prior to joining the doctoral program, Brooke received her Master of Public Health from Emory University, completed a Pathways Internship at the US Environmental Protection Agency, and worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemiology Research and Innovations Branch.

Jason Vargo, PhD

is a senior researcher in Community Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where he focuses on understanding the role of climate risk and equity in ensuring an inclusive and prosperous economy for all. He holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from Georgia Institute of Technology and dual master’s degrees in urban planning and public health from Emory University and Georgia Tech.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to all the colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from community development, the web team, and communications who helped with this report. Additional thanks to Dr. Katie Conlon and Dr. Maria Mirabelli for their partnership in this work, and to the Climate Change and Health Equity Section at the California Department of Public Health.

End Notes

i. Particulate matter (PM) is a measure of air pollution that refers to inhalable particles made up of various chemicals. PM2.5 refers to particles that are generally 2.5 micrometers and smaller (Source: EPA Particulate Matter [PM] Basics).

ii. The 2018 version of the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index is the most recent release at the time of the analysis. It is the case that neighborhood/population characteristics shift over time, such that a neighborhood’s SVI score in 2010 may be different than in 2018. By using the 2018 designations, the analysis highlights where smoke exposure changes over the last decade in neighborhoods that recently rank among the nation’s most vulnerable.

iii. Industry codes “11, 21”, “31-33”, and “22, 48-49” from the SAGDP2N data are used to capture industries with majority frontline workers.

iv. For examples of some of these “social determinants of health,” see the individual indicators of the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.

v. Reflects only changes in smoke over the study period and not changes to the number of students or students in poverty.

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Article Citation

Lappe, Brooke, and Jason Vargo. 2022. “Disruptions from Wildfire Smoke: Vulnerabilities in Local Economies and Disadvantaged Communities in the U.S.” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Community Development Research Brief 2022-06. doi: 10.24148/cdrb2022-06.

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