Wildfire smoke brings various health risks, especially to those with existing chronic medical conditions. Here are some of the precautions that you can take.
Talk about the hazy shade of Spring. Smoke from raging wildfires in Central Canada over the past six weeks has been traveling Southwards. That’s caused a haze across much of the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic U.S. on Wednesday. It’s also thrown quit a lot of shade on these areas, figuratively, resulting in bad air quality advisories affecting around 110 million people And if you are in an area where the air quality has been deemed somewhere from “unhealthy” to “hazardous,” you may want to “air” on the side of caution because all the toxins and particulate matter in wildfire smoke can bring some particularly concerning health risks as will be explained later.
For an example of what this smoke from the Quebec, Canada, wildfires has done so far, take a look at what’s been happening in New York City (NYC) on Wednesday. Or maybe you haven’t seen what’s been happening because it’s been so darn hazy outside. On Wednesday, many parts of NYC took on a orange hue, as the following EarthCam footage showed:
Now, while an orange shade may be fine on a pumpkin, Cheez-Its, or certain people’s faces, in this case it’s been from the sunlight refracting off all the particulate matter floating in the air. Manhattan Borough President Mark D. Levine tweeted out a graph showing how the amount of PM2.5 has been going up and up since Tuesday:
PM2.5 stands for particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers or smaller. These are considered “fine inhalable particles” because they are small enough to get into the smallest airways of your lungs. And such small particulate matter getting into your lungs is not particularly a good thing. As you can see by Levin’s tweet, on Wednesday afternoon, NYC air has been hovering in the “Very Unhealthy” range.
In fact, the wildfire smoke has helped NYC top the list of worst air quality in the world for now, which ain’t easy since so many parts of the world seem to be blowing smoke up your asphalt and other places. Health officials have been urging people in NYC to limit their outdoor activities today and potentially over the next few days until the smoke blows away. This has included New York City schools canceling all of their outdoor activities Wednesday. The smoke has also led to poor visibility, prompting the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) to effectively say, “slow down you moving too fast” to flight traffic in and out of Newark and LaGuardia airports on Wednesday.
And take a look at this. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul (D) has announced that the State will be distributing N95 face masks on Thursday morning:
“Smoke is never good in its various forms,” emphasized Daniel Kass, MPSPH, currently the Senior Vice President, Environmental Health at Vital Strategies and the former Deputy Commissioner for Environmental Health at NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene from 2009 to 2016. “Air pollution is responsible for 5 to 7 million deaths a year. While most are these deaths are from chronic exposures, when air pollution rises even in the short term it can pose health risks especially in vulnerable population.
