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How Wildfire Smoke Puts America’s Health at Risk
Warning! Air Quality Alert.
Phones along both coasts have increasingly lit up with health alerts cautioning individuals to guard against hazardous air pollution. These warnings, once only familiar on the West Coast, are now commonplace across the mainland U.S. as Canada's raging wildfires spread their smoke toward Boston, New York City, and Washington D.C.
According to a recent study published in The Lancet, at least 33,000 people die every year around the world due to wildfire smoke pollution. Most of these deaths have historically occurred in Central and South America.
Unfortunately for U.S. residents, regular disruption from wildfire smoke appears to be our new norm. Wildfires are increasing in intensity and size across the country. Since 2000, wildfires in America have burned about 7 million acres per year, almost double the amount burned in the 1990s. This is equivalent to the entire state of Massachusetts going up in flames. Since data started being recorded in 2006, the top four worst wildfire smoke days occurred in the last three years.
Most of our attention has been on the dangers of wildfires to infrastructure, the environment, and the economy. But discussions about their threat to public health have grown in urgency.
The long-term health impacts of wildfire smoke inhalation are still being studied and have traditionally been difficult to ascertain. But a growing body of research has linked wildfire smoke exposure to respiratory morbidity and increased cases of asthma. These effects are particularly dangerous to the most vulnerable populations, including fetuses.
To better understand the risks of wildfire smoke, exposure to cigarette smoke is a helpful comparison.
A Berkeley Earth research study compared general air pollution with cigarette smoke exposure. They measured air pollution by the particulate matter density in the Air Quality Index (AQI). Building on this research, Citizen Codex estimated the impact of wildfire smoke in terms of cigarette smoke using Stanford University’s ECHO lab data. This combined dataset captures pollutant density from wildfire smoke across the contiguous United States from 2006 through 2020.
Applying this methodology to the U.S. for the most recently available data, we found the 2020 fire season produces a bleak picture. At the extreme, residents of Mono County, California (Pop. 13,195), inhaled the equivalent of 90 cigarettes in a single week (September 13th, 2020). In 2020 wildfire smoke exposed nearly 25 million people to the equivalent of over four cigarettes (over 100 µg/m3) for at least one day.
And the consequences of wildfire smoke pollution extend far beyond the local communities ravaged by fires, reaching as far as the East Coast. During that same week in September 2020, 98% of counties within the contiguous United States experienced some level of air pollution due to wildfire smoke.
As wildfires worsen, the health risks associated with wildfire smoke are clearly intensifying. We can’t ban wildfires, like indoor smoking. We can’t just walk away as if it was avoidable second-hand smoke. While not as simple, the CDC recommends limiting exposure to wildfire smoke as much as possible, including wearing N95 masks, staying indoors, and making use of air filters. Only then can we learn to live with the new reality of wildfire smoke exposure and reduce the risk for our most vulnerable residents.
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Between 2008 and 2015, the various islands making up the U.S. territories received half the total media attention of equivalent-size states (4,936 vs. 10,138 articles).
An uptick in coverage of the territories in 2016 and 2017 was largely driven by the Puerto Rican debt crisis and the devastation of Hurricane María in the Caribbean.
North Korea’s 2017 announcement that Guam would be the target of its nuclear missile program also contributed to increased coverage that year.
In 2018 The New York Times reported heavily on the destruction caused by Typhoon Yutu in the Northern Marianas Islands.
The historic election of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the disparity in coverage between states and territories.
While native residents of the territories are generally U.S. citizens (except in American Samoa where they are U.S. nationals), they do not have the right to vote in general elections. Coverage about COVID-19 levels in different states and counties often excluded the territories.
The Enormous Federal Data Disparity
Federal data collection largely stops short of U.S. territories. Over the next 10 years, the Census Bureau will release approximately 264 key datasets for the 50 states. But for the territories of Guam, the Northern Marianas, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands, the Census Bureau will release only three total datasets over that same period: one decennial count and two economic surveys.
All told, the data collected by the Census Bureau will help direct at least 2.8 trillion dollars annually to 353 federal-assistance programs. While data on the 50 states helps the government direct funding where it’s needed most, a lack of territory data forces officials to operate in the dark.
For its most populous territory, Puerto Rico, federal data collection is a little better. The Census Bureau conducts an annual “Puerto Rican Community Survey” for the region’s 3.2 million residents. But the resulting estimates don’t use the same rigorous control methods as the “American Community Survey.” And data is only available on the county level instead of more specific geographies like zip codes and census tracts.
A Blindfold for Local Officials
Around the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. expanded its colonial influence over seas. Long left to the rule of the U.S. Navy, the nation’s territories were neglected by the government that claimed to rule them. This neglect hampered the development and assessment of the regions’ social programs. In recent years, a lack of federal data has hindered the ability of island territories to respond to disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather.
For example, in 2018, Typhoon Yutu devastated the Northern Mariana’s islands. By 2020, the recovery effort had just gotten underway when the spread of COVID-19 crushed the region’s critical tourism industry. When the federal government asked the region’s department of labor to estimate how many workers lost their jobs during the pandemic, they had no idea.
Speaking to the Honolulu Civil Beat, the head of Northern Mariana’s labor department Vicky Benavente said, “This is one lesson we learned. Data is so critical for justifying our asks to the federal government.”
State governments had ready access to reliable data. They used monthly reports from the Current Population Survey to monitor pandemic-induced rises in unemployment. Working without this data, the Northern Marianas government had to rely on a survey of employers conducted every two years. By 2021, so many businesses had shut their doors that few were left to reply.
About the Data
The Stanford Echo Lab’s Daily 10km wildfire smoke PM2.5 data set contains daily smoke particle estimates from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2020 for the contiguous United States. Estimates are based off machine learning models driven by ground, satellite, and reanalysis data sources.
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