Rachel’s father always suffers from a cold. She says: This is life when you have two children smaller than 5 years. You are always a little sick. However, her father and her family did not realize until after the father and her family fled voluntarily from the fires in Los Angeles, where she realized that coughing, sore throat and itching of the eye that she could not get rid of were exacerbated by the fires that swept the city. She said: “I don’t think I was really aware that the largest part of them was not due to the cold, but because of smoke.”
A father, who works as director of the South California University Health and Environment Center, is among the lucky ones. Her neighborhood in the center of Los Angeles was not exposed to a direct threat. Her house is sound. And her children and her husband and everything they have in safety. However, a father, like millions of Angelinus, cannot escape from the health effects of fires. Experts expect these effects to continue.
the Fires driven by wind That destroyed a large area of Los Angeles has been killed At least 25 peopleNearly 12,000 homes, schools and other buildings were devoured, and burned more than 40,000 acres since January 7. In the wake of such disasters, the right focus on treating the injured, mourning for the dead, and starting the long recovery process. Over time, attention turns into the health consequences that resonate after days, weeks, or even years after the end of the danger.
Forest fires, a natural part of many ecosystems, especially in the West, usually occur in the forests or where land lands meet societies. It is extremely rare to see them penetrating an American city, but this is exactly what happened in the second largest city in the country.
Like governmental and federal agencies DamageThe researchers say the health effects of forest fires should be accurately calculated.
“These fires differ from previous forest fires, because there are many buildings that have been burned,” said Yfang Zhou, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Everything has been burned in homes: cars, metal tubes and plastic.”
Forest fire smoke. The burning of trees and shrubs results BM 2.5Which digs deep in the lungs and can even sneak into the bloodstream, causing symptoms similar to cold symptoms and influenza in the short term, heart disease, lung cancer, and other chronic problems over time.
But the fires that broke out in Los Angeles burned thousands Houses, schools and historical buildingsEven Medical clinicsAnd the city is covered with thick smoke. For several days after the start of the first fire, it was the city’s air quality index, or AQI, It exceeded 100It is the threshold that usually appears during forest fires, where the air becomes unhealthy for breathing for children and the elderly and people with asthma. In some parts of the city, the number of al -Qaeda elements in Iraq reached 500, a number rarely seen and always a danger to everyone.
Currently, air pollution experts know the amount of smoke that fills the air. this The improvement showed In recent days. But they do not know what is inside it. “What are the chemical mixtures in this smoke?” Kai Chen, an environmental scientist at Yale College of Public Health. “In addition to the microscopic particles, there are dangerous organic compounds and other carcinogens – gas pollutants, trace metals and fine plastic particles.”
Previous research shows that the rises in the unhealthy air quality that were seen during such events lead to High hospital entry rates For issues such as asthma, and even contribute to heart attacks among people with this chronic disease. A 2024 study on the long -term effects of smoke in California showed that the particles caused by forest fires in the state from 2008 to 2018 contributed anywhere 52,000 to 56,000 early deaths. A Health evaluation Among the 148 firefighters who participated in the Tabs fire, which burned more than 36,000 acres in northern California in 2017 and destroyed an unusually large number of structures, found high levels of fires. Pfas Known as chemicals forever, heavy minerals and flame inhibitors in the blood and urine.
The Public Health Department of the Los Angeles Province has officially established And urged people to stay inside They wear masks to protect themselves from the dust and the toxic ash that the wind holds. Air quality measurements Do not take these molecules into considerationWhich means that the air quality index does not reveal the extent of pollutants in the air.
Zhu and her colleagues collected samples of forest fire smoke in neighborhoods near the fires. It will take months before the data is fully analyzed, but Chu is suspected that she will find a dangerous mixture of chemicals, including asbestos and lead, the materials used in many buildings that were built before the 1970s.
The danger will continue even after the smoke is disappeared. The columns that were launched over the landscape will depose chemicals in the drinking water supply and pollution of the soil. Fernando Rosario Ortez, Environmental Engineer and Temporary Dean of the University of Colorado Bulder, said that when the rain falls, she will sweep the toxic ash into water and across the ground. “There are many materials that a person makes and that are now burned. He said:” There is a possibility of pollution, “noting that there is little research on how toxic ash and other secondary products for forest fires in urban areas are currently.” What we do not have much. Information about it is what is happening now. ”
After destroying the Camp Fire Paradise fire, California, in 2018, water facilities I found high levels of volatile organic compounds In drinking water. Rosario Ortz said that similar problems arose in places such as Bulder County, Colorado, where Marshall’s fire destroyed nearly 1,000 buildings in 2021, although the presence of contaminated material at home does not necessarily mean that it will be at high levels at home. Water. However, many municipal water agencies were issued in Los Angeles Premium warnings urging residents not to drink tap water In the neighborhoods near the fires of Palsadis and Etone. Weeks will pass before they know exactly what is in the water.
With the increasing intensity and transgression of forest fires on urban areas, cities and provinces should be ready to monitor and respond to health effects. “This is the first time that I have witnessed or heard something like this,” said Zhu, who raised her daughter in Los Angeles and lived there for decades. “Even while I was in the field to study forest fires and air quality effects, I never imagined that an entire alive, or an entire society in Palissades will burn.”
A father returned to the house. She still suffers from an annoying cough, but its other symptoms are starting to recede with the disappearance of smoke in the neighborhood in which you live. Fars had been afraid, but she did not make long -term plans to go forward. She said, “I will not say that here where I am now, I am very worried.” “But I mean it is not great.”
