Agree. Especially anyone with lung issues. I live over 500 miles away so the consentration of smoke has dissipated quite a bit. Many members of my family are complaining about the small.
My son and I can build a clean, low smoke fire. The others are less able to build smoke free camp fires. The irony is that they don’t move when the wind blows concentrated smoke in their direction. Yet smoke from 500 miles away has them . . . laboring to breath. Irony seems like the word I’m looking to describe my thoughts, that’s all. It’s not intended to minimize the danger, destruction, threat, heallth risk especially to people and creatures in the immediate area. Big impact! Smells like a campfire. I was admonished for paddling last week due to the health risk. I don’t breath significantly more when I paddle abd don’t have air conditioning in my home. I’ll breath the smoke one way or another. Fire fighters breath this stuff all the time and it’s filled with real toxins.
I feel unsettled for the people living in the path of these fires. I wonder how changes in forest management has contributrd to these runaway fires. Forest fires are a feature of nature and often from carelessness.
Most people complaining I heard today are going home and sitting in front of a campfire all weekend or smoking pot so not sure what their beef actually is but this only a new phenomenon for the Easties. Happened every so often when I lived in the west. Life goes on
Thursday we were at Code Purple AQI here in Pittsburgh, PA (the next step up from Code Red) making us some of the worst in the country. Pittsburgh still has among the highest rates of chronic air pollution, though it was more obvious back before most (not all) of the steel mills closed in the 1970s – stinking yellow sulphurous haze. In fact the 3 day “death fog” in the Pittsburgh area industrial town of Donora in late 1948 that killed 20 people and caused lung problems for more than 6,000 other residents was one of the events that lead to government intervention in regulating air pollution.
My house is near the crest of one of the higher ridges in the county where we tend to get clearing breezes, so it is not as hazy as we are seeing in photos of downtown and the deep river valleys here. But the nearest monitoring station to me was still registering 200 to 265 AQI yesterday (some of the highest in the country for the day). I ignored it and spent a couple of hours digging beds and planting bulbs and nursery plants. Felt hot and sticky but OK (fortunately I don’t have any lung vulnerabilities) – been running an ionizing HEPA air cleaner in the house but since I have central AC (also HEPA filtered) and the place is well sealed I have not been letting much outside air inside.
But I am not pushing my luck and will be taking a break today. We have been told to expect a line of heavy storms Sunday so maybe that will clear things out a bit.
Yes, I’m just starting to learn the AQI since I could always ignore it until recently. I think we hit 279 this week. The news said Chicago had the worst air quality in the world a few days ago which seems hard to believe. Our air quality has already improved with the wildfire smoke moving east but it also got hot and humid so it’s still borderline paddling weather for me.
our AQI hit 42. The highest it’s been recently. Usually around 3. Of course we are on the side of the Omega block that has a low. Its been here since May. It has rained almost every day and only brief peeks at sun… No heat at all. Until recently we have been using our woodstove. Temps are finally edging above 70 degrees for daytime highs.
We do have heat pumps hence A/C but haven’t needed them.
Yes AQI is a new thing for me to Google. I started tracking it about three weeks ago.
Of course it can be stopped. We have massive fires due to neglect. Logging and thinning are the way to create fire resilience. Retired forester.
Get used to watching the AQI. When fires are closer to where you live 300-400 can be commom place. We have had 480-500 for a day or to. Forest management has become a public health issue. Get logging to improve public health.
2-3 packs a day?