Wildfires have worsened Fresno’s bad air quality. Here’s what the experts say to do
Air quality in Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley is expected to be especially poor through the weekend because of the fires burning in the Sequoia National Forest, according to experts.
The Windy Fire in the forest and Tulare County was approaching 90,000 acres Friday, and the KNP Complex to its north nears 52,000 acres, according to the latest from the National Forest Service.
In response to the air quality, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District issued an air quality alert on Thursday. People in the Valley should take measures to avoid contact with the particulate matter that comes from the smoke and ash in the air, the district said.
Parts of Fresno and the Valley on Friday morning showed a particulate level in the purple range, the worst rating on the district’s meter. When the matter reaches the purple range, officials say everyone should avoid being outdoors.
Staying in a filtered, air-conditioned place with the windows closed is recommended for all residents in the Valley.
The smoke is exacerbated by a warmer system of weather hanging around the region until at least Tuesday, according to meteorologist David Spector with the National Weather Service in Hanford.
Cooler weather is expected to shift up Tuesday through the Valley from Southern California. “We’re going to see cooler temperatures and it’s going to open the door for a new pattern change next week,” Spector said.
By the end of next week, the Valley high temperatures will be in the high 60s and lows in high 40s, he said.
Particulate matter can trigger asthma attacks, aggravate chronic bronchitis, and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Those with heart or lung disease should follow their doctors’ advice for dealing with particulate matter, the district says.
“Literally no amount of exposure is safe,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of earth system science for Stanford University. “There’s no magic threshold under which we’re OK and beyond which we’re in trouble. The lesson is that any amount is bad. And the more you get the worse it is.”
National effects
Smoke from wildfires, which have burned millions of acres in California alone, is choking vast swaths of the country, an analysis of federal satellite imagery by National Public Radio’s California Newsroom and Stanford University’s Environmental Change and Human Outcomes Lab found.
The monthslong analysis, based on more than 10 years of data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and analyzed down to the ZIP code level, reveals a startling increase in the number of days residents are breathing smoke across California and the Pacific Northwest, to Denver and Salt Lake City in the Rocky Mountains and rural Kentucky and West Virginia in Appalachia.
When looking at major U.S. cities, the analysis found the starkest increase in San Jose, where smoke days were up more than 400%. San Jose residents breathed smoke 45 days a year on average between 2016 and 2020. In Los Angeles and San Diego, the number of days with wildfire smoke increased 230% to 32 days a year in Los Angeles and 23 days in San Diego.
Parts of Fresno saw 60 days a year with wildfire smoke between 2016 and 2020, an increase of 225%, the report says.
Even the East Coast was not immune as prevailing winds carried smoke plumes from the western United States and Canada thousands of miles away. In Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., the study found the number of days residents breathed wildfire smoke increased approximately 40% to over 20 days of smoke on average in a year.
“This is no longer just a West Coast story. This is a U.S.-wide story,” Burke said.
The Valley district’s wildfire information page is valleyair.org/wildfires. Real-time air quality by ZIP code is also available at myRAAN.com.
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 11:16 AM.
