Looking upwind at wildfires
We all pay for their devastation.
WILDFIRES ARE SOMEWHERE ELSE, RIGHT?
We’re safe walking Buddy in Central Park, aren’t we?
Well, no. One day last summer smoke from the Bootleg Fire in Oregon turned the sun red over Manhattan. The air quality index rose to 170. Particulate matter in the Big Apple was nine times the exposure recommendations from the World Health Organization.
WILDFIRES ARE SPREADING TOWARD US . . .
Destructive fires are on the rise. This is largely because of climate change. Heat dries out vegetation, making it quicker and hotter to burn. In the West, the yearly average area burned in large forest fires grew by about 1200 percent between the 1970s and the 2000s. Over the last 60 years, three of the top five years for burned acreage have occurred since 2015.
And whose hometowns are being burned? In California, 12% of households live in an area that has seen wildfire since 2010. That share is 38% in Idaho, 19% in Utah. More than 40 million Americans live in zones at high risk.
Towns in the path of a fire are paying big time, of course - homes and neighborhoods demolished, town services cut, dog parks and other amenities destroyed, local timber and tourist jobs lost, plus a crashing blow to municipal budgets. Adding insult to injury, soot blows out from destroyed forests on windy days.
. . . BUT WE’RE ALSO SPREADING TOWARDS WILDFIRES
Not many know that, while stronger wildfires are advancing toward more hometowns, many towns are expanding their neighborhoods and suburbs into fire-prone country. The number of households that moved into areas with a recent history of wildfire climbed 21% last year compared to the year before.
Why are we moving towards danger? There are some new reasons: people fleeing COVID, employees learning to work remotely, and home buyers escaping rising home prices.
But 21% growth in one year!!!???
OUR DANGER ISN’T REALLY FIRE.
When we check our town’s estimated risks of wildfire (see below), we may find some surprises, like “Populated areas in Chicago have, on average, greater risk than 85% of communities in Illinois.” The risks, of course, are not so much property damage from the blazes but health damage from pollutants. These particularly hurt the elderly, the poor, families in mobile homes, and those without a car.
The costs of California’s 2018 wildfires to the US economy as a whole are estimated to be $148.5bn. That’s 0.7% of the country’s annual GDP. There are big local costs, of course, but half of that total was incurred away from the fire and its devastation. And one-third of those costs, $45.9bn, were incurred outside the state!
WHERE DOES OUR MONEY DISAPPEAR TO?
Healthcare costs For those of us well away from a fire, medical costs are the big ones. Many satellite photos show air pollution spreading east across the continent, carrying the fine airborne particles that exacerbate asthma. respiratory and cardiovascular problems. Not only are ER visits and hospitalizations up, but globally landscape fire smoke is associated with hundreds of thousands of deaths annually.
Asthma In 2015 asthma sufferers in the US made 17 million doctor’s visits and 30,000 emergency room visits. Many of these were children, whose first asthma attack may usher in a life-long health problem. (Buddy wants us to know that pets’ health suffers from bad air just like other family members.) Directly or through health insurance Americans were paying $1.3 billion to doctors, plus $11 billion to pharmacies and drugmakers to treat allergies.
For those of us who are thinking of moving - because of climate change or other reasons - wildfires are narrowing our options. This new air pollution is reducing the number of climate-proof towns across the country. The Great Lakes area, which seems relatively safe from heat, flooding, drought, and sea-level rise is now increasingly a target of long-distance smoke.
COVID: Breathing particulates, even for a short time, is known to increase the risk of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Mental health, especially for firefighters. The U.S. Forest Service has more than 10,000 professional firefighters. Most live outside wildfire territory, and many are showing symptoms of chronic stress.
“More fires in the wildland/urban interface, where they see a lot more traumatic events, can be a lot more debilitating. In the wild, if you lost a thousand acres, it wasn’t that big of a deal. But one acre today might mean four people’s homes lost . . . or maybe a life.” Jim Duzac, former Smoke Jumper, now nurse practitioner in psychiatry.
There’s been a definite increase in the number of wildland firefighters who have taken their lives, and there are non-firefighter being affected by anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder caused by wildfires and other climate-driven threats.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
The dangers are growing and spreading. We will increasingly need long-distance protection from wildfires. Wherever we live, we should learn what actions will stop our family from breathing small particle pollution . . . and how to check when to take those actions.
To help others, we can support the Wildfire Emergency Act, currently in the US Senate.
What else? Please let us have your suggestions in the Comments below!
LEARN, THINK, ACT
Here’s where to learn about
A river of smoke blowing across the country, as far as New York!
How American neighborhoods are moving into fire country.
National costs from wildfires, and who pays them.
Health costs from smoke.
Mental health problems.
Mental health challenges to firefighters.
How to reduce our risks from wildfires before, during, and after.
Getting local air quality forecasts.
Not convinced wildfires hurt our families? Here’s a readable more-than-you-want-to-know resource.
Excellent perspective. Thanks for the links. Two years ago, Australia was afflicted with many devastaing wildfires due to dry conditions. Thankfully, last year and this year we have seen plenty of rain to keep forests moist. But it is only a matter of time before it happens again.