A Matter of Life and Breath

California wildfires mucking up state's air quality

Posted at 7:56 AM on 02 Jul 2008

California's raging wildfires, which have burned some 660 square miles in the last few weeks, are also significantly worsening air quality, causing high levels of soot, and aggravating asthma patients. "Our waiting rooms are full of people with sore throats, itchy eyes, and sniffles," said a respiratory therapist with Fresno's Sequoia Community Health Center. Already poor air quality in the San Joaquin Valley, an important agricultural area, has been even worse than usual this summer thanks to the smoky fires. Officials advised families who weren't forced to evacuate to stay indoors. Some 19,000 fire fighters are working to contain still-raging blazes across the state. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday ordered the National Guard to fire duty to relieve some of the exhausted crews -- the first such call to duty to combat fires since 1977. The governor also discouraged Californians from indulging in pyrotechnic displays of patriotism this weekend, declaring that "it's just too dry and too dangerous to do those things." Instead, he advised everyone to get their firepower fix by staying home and renting old action films.

sources: Associated Press, Associated Press

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Comments: (5 comments)

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action movies...

Like Terminator?

by alphaniner at 8:40 AM on 02 Jul 2008

Air, fresh please, if you don't mind

Well I've been wearing a mask with carbon filters for almost 2 years now, in my office no less, because of the synthetically scented this, that & the other thing coworkers wear. Perhaps the looks I get won't be quite so odd from now on. Fresh air - nothing like it. I feel for those folks, their air wasn't the greatest to begin with.

by Masked Goddess at 8:47 AM on 02 Jul 2008

Wildfires

These fires are a symptom of the ecological disaster that is the California wildlands. Centuries of fire suppression (did you know the first law passed in California by the Spanish was banning Indian fires, which had maintained the fire-dependent ecology for thousands of years?) have led to completely unmanageable timber loading. Unsustainable forestry practices have left dense stands of Douglas fir of minimal commercial value but high fire potential.

I've spent some time doing fire load thinning, and it is very hard work, and there is plenty of poison oak to keep you on your toes. We must have a century worth of youth service projects just in the North SF Bay area. If we got the fuel load managed, we could start rounds of controlled burns, but in most areas that's simply impossible now. One biologist I know partially blames the broken fire cycle for the devestating consequences of Phytopthera ramorum (aka Sudden Oak Death) because the lack of fire is altering the soil pH, making the trees more susceptible to the pathogen.

The air quality here in the East Bay hasn't been all that bad, particularly this week, but I've smelled it every morning, and I can imagine how difficult it is for people with less robust lungs. We have to manage our wildlands better or climate change is going to kick our suntanned butts.

Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

by PermieWriter at 10:25 AM on 02 Jul 2008

Bad v. Good Wildfires

Wildfires are a natural and necessary part of many terrestrial ecosystems. There have been three causes identified as harmfully changing this natural regime. Suppression of natural wildfires, as identified by Permie above, is one of them.

Logging -- I don't like this euphemism for tree killing, but that's another issue -- has also been identified as a cause of more and larger fires than would burn naturally. Where too many trees in an area are logged, the loss of canopy shade causes the ground to be hotter and more susceptible to fire. Additionally, loggers go after the biggest trees, which happen to be the most fire resistant, and leave smaller ones, which burn easily.

Cattle grazing in and at the edge of forests is another reason for unnaturally dense forests. Cattle graze on grasses that compete with trees. With the grasses gone, the trees proliferate and become unnaturally dense. If a fire begins there's too much "fuel" and the fire burns hotter and bigger than it would have.

The skies over San Francisco last week were weird. The reflection of the sun on the ground, which normally would be white or clear, was yellow. The sun itself was a peach-tinted orange. The sky itself looked more like L.A. than S.F. It's been back to normal this week.

by Wolverine at 12:29 PM on 02 Jul 2008

Fossil fuels & fires

From Union of Concerned Scientists website:

"The more global warming pollution that
is emitted into the atmosphere, the more
wildfires we can expect to see in California.

If average statewide temperatures rise to
the medium warming range (5.5 to 8°F),
the risk of large wildfires in California is
expected to increase about 20 percent by
mid-century and 50 percent by the end
of the century. This is almost twice the
wildfire increase expected if temperatures
are kept within the lower warming range.

Along with temperature, wildfires are
determined by a variety of factors, including
precipitation. Because of this, future wildfire
risk throughout the state will not be
uniform. For example, a hotter, drier climate
could increase the flammability of vegetation
in northern California and promote
up to a 90 percent increase in large wildfires
by the end of the century. A hotter, wetter
climate would also lead to an increase in
wildfires in northern California, but to a
lesser extent--about a 40 percent increase
by century's end."

by Zephaniah at 4:21 PM on 02 Jul 2008

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