Wildfires Are Taking an Unexpectedly Huge Toll on America’s Lungs
A new approach to tracking harmful smoke shows it may cause as much damage as rising temperatures.
This enhanced satellite image provided by NASA's Earth Observatory, shows a wildfire in Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. Flames in the image were enhanced with infrared data. (NASA via AP)
Source: NASA/APDuring the 2018 Camp Fire, which lasted 17 days and killed 85 people, residents of nearby Northern California communities breathed in enough smoke to equal half a pack of cigarettes. Many of the questions being asked then sound eerily familiar today. Should schools close? Who should wear a mask? Then as now, answers from officials often made the situation more confusing, not less.
“Even county to county or community to community, you got very different information on what you should be doing,” says Marshall Burke, a Stanford University professor of earth system science.