[ad_1]
Ethan Sims and Wesley Pidcock know what to expect when fire season arrives. As doctors who specialize in helping people breathe, they see what happens when wildfire smoke spreads to communities across Idaho.
Every time there’s a rise in the air quality index — the level of dangerous air — there’s an increase in hospital visits, he said.
“When we start to get bad smoke — like three or four weeks ago — it’s usually delayed when the smoke starts to get into the area,” Pidcock said in an interview Wednesday. “And then three to five days later, when you start getting a lot of phone calls, it’s like, ‘Hey, I can’t breathe.'”
As a pulmonologist at St. Alphonsus Health System, Pidcock sees those patients in the hospital — and sometimes in the intensive care unit — with medical conditions that were under control until the smoke came in.
“And you think it’s just a respiratory disease, but it’s not,” said Sims, an emergency physician at St. Luke’s Health System. “Of course it’s for all comers.”
Elderly people, children, and people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease struggle the most when wildfire smoke is in the air.
But those are only people with immediate health problems, Sims and Pidcock said. Blood samples from wildland firefighters, tobacco smokers, and people exposed to wildfire smoke indicate that prolonged or prolonged exposure to smoke is not healthy for everyone.
As doctors in one of the nation’s wildfire capitals, they worry about what it means for public health when the air turns hazy and smells like wildfires.
What happens to your body when you inhale wildfire smoke?
Scientists and health care providers have known for decades that air pollution is harmful to the human body. And in recent years, more studies have focused on wildfire smoke.
“Recent studies have shown improvements in air quality for the U.S. due to reductions in emissions from industry and vehicles… Air pollution in areas prone to wildfires, particularly in the U.S. mountains, has increased and is projected to worsen. Climate mediation increases wildfire activity,” scientists wrote in a 2020 study led by University of Montana researchers.
The study, based on decades of data, found that flu season hits people the hardest during particularly bad wildfire seasons — even if the flu comes months after exposure to smoke.
Hospitals and clinics are seeing patients come in as soon as the smoke comes in – breathing in those tiny particles in the air and having trouble breathing. But the smoke has a lasting effect.
“So there’s an immediate effect, but there’s also a delayed effect, because your lungs take a long time to recover from the smoke exposure,” Sims said. “Imagine, if you smoke two packs of cigarettes a day for two weeks, your lungs will not be back to normal the day you quit smoking the last cigarette. And if you smoke two packs of cigarettes for 10 years, just one month a year, even for 10 years, the effect will be more.
Sims and Pidcock said they advise their patients — and anyone who can — to check air quality reports and stay indoors if the air quality is unhealthy. They tell patients to close windows, run air filters if they have them, cycle their air conditioners or fans with clean filters, and call their primary care providers immediately if the smoke makes them feel sick; Often patients wait until they have trouble breathing, he said.
But, as they say, not everyone has the means to set up a high-quality HEPA filter to clean the air in their home, workplace, or school.
Idaho wildfire activity has increased during the hot, dry summer.
States like California and Oregon have experienced untold human devastation from wildfires in recent years — people have been injured and killed, homes burned and entire towns evacuated.
But when it comes to wildfire activity, Idaho has become the continental US capital for acres burned.
Fire season now regularly brings unhealthy weather conditions to Idaho and its neighbors for wildfires.
Idaho’s wet spring delayed the start of the fire season, but fire risk and activity picked up during the hot, dry summer.
So far this year, 347,871 acres have burned in Idaho, Idaho Land Department Director Dustin Miller told the Idaho Board of Land Commissioners Tuesday morning at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.
That figure includes federal, state and private land.
“August was definitely warmer than average, and the size and frequency of fires increased throughout the month,” Miller said.
One of the issues now is that many current firefighters are going back to school, Miller told the land board. Firefighters are sometimes college students who take up wildland firefighting as a summer job.
On state lands managed by the Idaho Department of Land, the state is turning to some fire crews to help with fire suppression efforts when they can, he said.
“The resources are spread thin, but we’re getting some relief right now with cooler temperatures and some scattered rain,” Miller said. “High fire danger remains in many parts of the state, but shorter days and improved conditions are helping our firefighting efforts.”
The largest fire in Idaho this year is the Moose Fire in the Salmon-Challise National Forest outside of Stanley, which has burned more than 130,000 acres since July 17. Event Information System Report. As of Tuesday, fire officials reported that the Moose Fire was 51% contained. However, they did not expect the fire to stop completely until October 31.
On Tuesday, the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center said 38 large wildfires were burning in Idaho, the most in the nation. There are 27 large fires in Montana, 13 large fires in Washington and six large fires in California and Oregon, according to fire officials.
[ad_2]
Source link
