Pregnant Children and Children are at Increase Risk from Wildfire Smoke: Implications for Kids and Families in BC, Ontario and Quebec

They began in late April in British Columbia and Alberta, and new blazes have cropped up in recent weeks in the eastern provinces of Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec.

Pregnant people and children – especially children with asthma – are also at increased risk of harm from exposure to wildfire smoke. Kids breathe faster and take in more polluted air, says Dr. Lisa Patel, a pediatrician at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. “Kids are more susceptible to begin with because their airways are even smaller. So even a smaller amount of inflammation can hit a kid harder as well,” Patel says. For children under age five, this is particularly true.

Kids are more vulnerable to the effects of wildfire smoke. They’re more active, have developing lungs and take in more air than adults do relative to their body size. The decision to close school is up to each local district, but just a few years ago, there weren’t many health resources to inform those decisions.

Millions of Americans were put under air quality advisories on Thursday because of smoke from Canadian wildfires.

Air travel, sporting events and all kinds of outdoor activities have been disrupted because of the haze.

Officials are warning people, especially children, the elderly and those with heart and respiratory conditions, to take precautions and stay inside until the smoke clears, which could take days.

The Spreading of Smoke from West Coast Wildfires in the United States and the New England Report of a “Misleading Fire”

“There’s no one else you can do about the atmosphere,” says William Vizuete, professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the UNC- Chapel Hill. “But we need to understand those processes so we can eventually understand what we’re exposed to when we’re exposed to those [particles].”

The smoke from a slow-burning upper-low in New England will be able to spread southward with major metropolitan areas such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and DC expected to suffer from unhealthy air quality levels.

There are 614 active wildfires with 236 of them considered “out of control” according to Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of public safety.

He says firefighters from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, France and the United States are also helping out. Over 600 firefighters and support personnel from the U.S. have been deployed to Canada.

Jason West, a professor of environmental sciences and engineering at UNC Chapel Hill, says it’s not unheard of for wildfire smoke to travel long distances: The last few years have seen cases where smoke from West Coast fires ended up on the East Coast. He says that is notable this season because of how widespread the fires are in Canada.

Climate change has the potential to cause more frequent and extreme weather events in different parts of the world, as he says the situation offers a glimpse into what might happen in the future.

A change in weather could improve air quality in one of two ways, West explains: Rainfall could remove the harmful particles from the air, while wind could change the direction of the smoke altogether.

The National Weather Service said that the smoke could simply be directed towards other parts of the U.S., if the fires continue.

What can you learn from a day of extreme air pollution, Marshall Burke says: “The worst day on record” for the average American is Tuesday, June 7th, 2023

Air purifiers can be expensive, so if you don’t have one, Patel suggests, making one yourself. She says to get a high-efficiency particulate air filter and put it on a box fan to get about 50% reduction in air pollution indoors. And try to avoid anything that makes the indoor air quality worse. “If you have a gas stove, try to avoid using it,” Patel says. Don’t vacuum or burn candles because that will just add more particles to your indoor air.

“We’ve spent a lot of time trying to develop ways to measure air quality and create an air quality index that can easily communicate what that means to the public,” he says, “and I think we’re seeing some of the fruits of that.”

The worst day on record for the average American when it comes to pollution is Wednesday, June 7th, 2023. A thick haze of smoke swept in from the fires in Canada and blanketed much of the Northeast with harmful particulate pollution.

Marshall Burke was on the phone with the editor when he received the results of his analysis. He said audibly he was surprised even though he expected the numbers to be bad. “It’s really remarkable. It’s pretty shocking.

An average for Americans represents those figures. Some people in the worst-hit areas were exposed to as much as 500 micrograms, an “insanely high level,” according to Burke. New York City and parts of upstate New York were the hardest hit yesterday.

The research team combines satellite data with readings from pollution monitors on the ground. Smoke pollution estimates can be compared with population data. The western US typically has to cope with more wildfire smoke than the Northeast. But there are a lot more densely populated cities in the Northeast that were affected by the pollution this week, which is another factor that makes this event so remarkable.

Burke says that this is a completely historic event. Historical events are becoming more and more common in the wake of climate change. It feels like a wake up call. It feels like maybe a taste of things to come,” he says.

How to protect yourself and your pet during wildfires: An expert analysis of real-time air quality measurements from a crowdsourced network of sensors

In case your family needs to evacuate, experts recommend keeping a go bag for your pet, which will include food, water, medicine, first aid supplies, a leash or harness, and toys.

Pets can take only brief bathroom breaks when the air quality is not good, and should stay indoors as much as possible. Birds shouldn’t go outside in smoky conditions.

Air quality is quantified using a scale that ranges from zero to 500, with a lower number indicating better air quality and anything over 300 being hazardous.

Research by the Environmental Protection Agency and others has found exposure to particle pollution increases hospitalizations for serious cardiovascular events like heart failure, strokes, heart attacks and death.

These are tiny solid and liquid droplets that hang in the air and can be harmful to human health. Wildfires are a major source of particulate matter in the air.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the more technical wildfire-related terms you might hear and what experts say are some of the best ways to protect yourself and your loved ones.

There is a lot to learn since the Canadian wildfires caused smoke to billow across the border and into the Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic United States.

When New York City’s skyline turned an eerie orange color with smoke from widespread wildfires in Canada, it was an all-too-familiar sight for residents of the Western U.S. In recent years, record-setting wildfires have darkened the sky for weeks at a time with dirty air, upending life for Westerners.

When wildfires raged in California in the summer of 2020, the air was choked with smoke for weeks. Many residents tracked the air quality in real-time on Purple Air, a crowd-sourced network of sensors that shows pollution readings across a city.

Researchers found that the households that took action did a better job. Those that closed their windows, had air purifiers or ran central air conditioners had lower levels of indoor pollution.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made portable indoor air purifiers a much more common item, but when smoke fills the skies, it can be tough to find one in a store. So, plans to build more affordable DIY air purifiers have proliferated online where all someone needs is a box fan, some air filters and duct tape.

Air Quality can cause many schools to close, but policies can be chaotic. While an elementary school might close for the day, nearby preschools or aftercare programs might remain open.

For school administrators, the decision can be fraught. Many working parents have no other options for where to send their kids. And knowing when to keep kids indoors can be tough for families, based on the official air quality index or AQI. While children are considered a “sensitive” group, there’s not much guidance about whether a yellow or orange air alert is enough to keep kids under lockdown.

As wildfire smoke became more severe in California, state officials released an index with more specific advice for schools about activities, like what to do about P.E., recess and sports events. (In the state’s version, it doesn’t mention exact air quality index numbers, though many school districts have consulted local air quality officials and created guidelines, like this version from Shasta County Office of Education.)

Creating smoke response plans ahead of time, with community input, is key for schools, according to Eric Wittmershaus, director of communications for the Sonoma County Office of Education. The new “snow days” are happening on the West Coast.

“One of the things we tell school officials to balance is whether the students will be safer and healthier if they’re in their school building, which may have a better HVAC system than what the students have at home,” Wittmershaus says. “It’s going to be a fact of life we struggle with.”

“We see individuals with access to fewer resources, who may live in substandard housing, who may desire to reduce their exposure but who are unable to do so,” says Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, assistant professor in the department of earth system science at Stanford University, who has studied how communities responded to smoke in California.

Overall, not many people are checking the air quality index on a regular basis and changing their behavior, her research found. Instead, seeing how other people react to smoke is the bigger motivator.

The lesson: make sure the message is coming from those in the local community, like community groups, senior centers or faith groups. Providing masks, air filters and other items to groups on the ground can ensure that those who most need it are reached.

If you do go outside, then wear a mask. “Just like with COVID, the best mask is going to be a high quality, well-fitting, what we call a respirator mask, an N95 or KN95,” Marr says. Surgical masks or cloth masks are better than nothing, but they don’t offer great protection. N95 masks can filter out 95 percent of smoke particles, if fitted properly and dirty air doesn’t leak around the sides.

And drink lots of water. The fluid keeps the parts of the body moist, which helps alleviate irritation. Also, avoid exercise when the air is bad. Exercise makes you breathe more deeply, bringing any particles in the air deeper into your airways.

If you have cracks under the doors where the air is coming in, Linsey Marr, an aerosols expert at Virginia Tech, suggests rolling up a towel to block it. If you have an air purifier, “run it on high so that you are filtering your indoor air as much as possible,” Marr says.

How New York City air pollution can be avoided: Dr. Ravi Kalhan’s analogy to NYers smoking a pack of cigarettes a day

Inhaling polluted air can also impact the development of the fetus. “So I think that pregnant women should do all they can to avoid exposure on days when the levels are so high,” Brenner says. He points to several studies showing that the rate of hospitalization for children with asthma increases when air pollution is high.

While a thick yellow haze has blanketed much of the Eastern U.S. this week, some of the poorest air quality in the world has been in New York City. Pulmonologist Dr. Ravi Kalhan, of Northwestern Medicine likened it to New Yorkers smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.