How Smoke From California’s Fires is Harming the Most Vulnerable

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/smoke-california-wildfires-harming-most-vulnerable-21777

By John Upton (Climate Central) and Kate Wheeling (Pacific Standard)
Dec. 8,2017

David Ewing wore a bright white dust mask, his face behind it puffy and red, as he sat on a stone bench in downtown Santa Barbara, California. A fine layer of ash covered the pavement at his feet, dirty residue from wildfires ravaging the region.

“When I woke up yesterday I couldn't breathe,” said Ewing, who is homeless and has been diagnosed with cancer. He spent the previous night sleeping behind a Saks department store. “This stuff is just wiping me out.”

Ewing is among the tens of thousands of homeless in Southern California who are struggling to escape the smoke as wildfires tear through the region. Experts caution against spending time outdoors when it’s smoky, but for many, staying inside isn't an option.

Wildfire seasons have been growing longer and more severe throughout the American West. Heat-trapping pollution and the effects of weather cycles have pushed up temperatures. Meanwhile, saplings and other fuel for fires has accumulated in forests. That’s stoking blazes that are undermining long-running efforts to clean the air using environmental regulations.

“When we have warm conditions, that tends to draw more moisture out of vegetation,” said John Abatzoglou, a geographer at the University of Idaho who studies climate change and wildfires. “It tends to accelerate the rate at which vegetation dries up and becomes receptive to igniting and carrying fire.”

Wildfire smoke can travel hundreds of miles and blanket valleys and regions, creating what scientists call smoke waves. Smoke waves are pulses of bad air caused by fires that linger stubbornly for days, similar to heat waves.

Smoke contains chemicals from burning rubber and homes. It can also worsen ozone pollution. And it’s filled with tiny particles known as PM2.5, which can lodge inside lungs, trigger coughing, worsen diseases like asthma, and lead to long-term damage including cancer.

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“The larger the fire, the more people are affected, and the worse the health impacts will be,” said Loretta Mickley, a Harvard University researcher who worked on the study. “It’s just one more consequence of our love of emitting these greenhouse gases. So it’s one more reason to think about, ‘OK, let’s cut these emissions back.’”

Even a state with some of America’s most rigorous and progressive pollution standards can do little to protect itself. “Our state laws and policies and local efforts are all working to drive down smog and soot pollution,” said William Barrett, a policy analyst in California at the non-profit American Lung Association, which has been providing masks to the Red Cross to give to the needy. “But now with our changing environment, we’re seeing longer and more severe fire seasons and, along with that, greater impacts to air quality.”

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As with most pollution, the poorest and frailest are the most vulnerable to smoke waves. A U.S. EPA study of emergency room visits linked to a North Carolina wildfire that burned in 2008 showed health risks from PM2.5 increased in the counties with the poorest residents and with the greatest levels of income inequality.

In California, where a fast-growing population is fueling a housing crisis, officials and non-profits have been working to protect the homeless population, such as by providing masks. Non-profit workers have also been providing masks to farm workers. Homeless people and farm workers can be especially vulnerable because they often have limited access to health care and have trouble sheltering inside when the smoke outside is heavy.

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The conditions stoking the blazes in Southern California are projected to become more common and severe in the years ahead as greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuel burning, deforestation, farming and other industrial practices accumulates in the atmosphere, changing temperatures and rainfall patterns.

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But even getting indoors can be a major challenge for the homeless in L.A., one of the only U.S. cities where homelessness is rising. In 2017, the number of homeless people climbed to over 55,000 — up more than 13,000 from the year prior. L.A. also has the largest unsheltered subpopulation of any big city, according to Colleen Murphy, an outreach coordinator for the L.A. Homeless Services Authority.

"In most big cities, there's at least shelters to go to at night. In Los Angeles, 75 percent of our homeless are unsheltered, so that means on any given night, they're sleeping outdoors or in their cars," she said. For comparison, 5 percent of New York City's 76,000 homeless are unsheltered. "It's very challenging even on a good day."

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