In modern times, we have never seen so many homes and businesses get burned up in a heavily populated metropolitan area in the United States. The fires in California have produced enormous amounts of smoke, and health officials are trying to alert the public to the potential dangers. More than 20 million people live in Southern California, but even those living hundreds of miles away could potentially develop serious respiratory problems as a result of breathing in this smoke. According to an assistant professor at the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, wildfire smoke is “super toxic” to the lungs…
The most dangerous component of wildfire smoke is fine particle pollution, also known as PM2.5 or soot. These tiny particles, smaller than one 20th the width of a human hair, can, if inhaled, become embedded in the bloodstream and lungs. It is estimated that about one-third of all particulate matter pollution in the US now comes from wildfire smoke.
“Wildfire smoke is super toxic to the lungs, more so than ‘regular’ smoke, because of the concentrations of fine particulates,” said Don McKenzie, an assistant professor at the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.
When very small particles from wildfire smoke get embedded in your lungs, it can cause respiratory distress and a whole host of other health issues…
The cause for concern is, “the main component of smoke is particulate matter and that can penetrate deep into the lungs, which directly causes respiratory issues but it can also enter the bloodstream where it can cause a range of other health issues,” said Anne Kelsey Lamb, director of Regional Asthma Management and Prevention.
Wildfire smoke can be extremely harmful to the lungs of at-risk people who include, children whose lungs are still developing, pregnant women, older adults, those with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic heart disease or diabetes, according to the American Lung Association.
Exposure to air pollution like wildfire smoke can also lead to the onset of asthma in otherwise healthy people, Lamb said.
What makes the current scenario that we are facing so much worse is that we aren’t just dealing with smoke from trees, plants and grass that have been burned.
Homes and businesses contain all sorts of highly toxic materials, and we are being told that those materials could “have toxic effects that we don’t really know at this point”…
Joel Kaufman, a professor of environmental health and medicine at the University of Washington, explained why a wildfire in an urban location such as Los Angeles is particularly hard to predict in terms of air quality effects.
“What’s a little bit different in this fire is that we don’t really know the toxicity of a fire that includes so much in the way of buildings that have burned and anthropogenic materials,” Kaufman said. “What’s burning in the businesses and in all the houses are not the same things that would burn in a forest fire. Some of what’s getting in the air can have toxic effects that we don’t really know at this point.”
In particular, experts are sounding the alarm about all of the plastic and all of the paint that has been burned up and released into the air by these fires…
Toxic chemicals from plastics, paint from the house and furniture are a few examples of what has been burned and is being released in the air, said Anthony Wexler, director of the Air Quality Research Center at UC Davis.
Researchers are still working to understand the relative toxicity of these specific chemical pollutants during a fire event.
Basically, we are facing a situation where giant mountains of toxic material have been burned up and are being breathed in by tens of millions of Americans.
According to Google, more than 23 million people live in Southern California alone.
Of course you don’t have to live in Southern California to be affected.
When massive wildfires erupted in Canada in 2023, it resulted in “a dramatic rise in emergency room visits” in the Big Apple…
In 2023, New York City saw a dramatic rise in emergency room visits, many related to asthma attacks, when smoke blew into the city from Canadian wildfires.
If you live in the states of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, you are potentially in danger, and I would encourage you to take precautions.
We have never seen a fire disaster of this magnitude.
AccuWeather is now projecting that the total economic damage from these fires will be somewhere between 250 billion dollars and 275 billion dollars…
And, as the damage increases, so does the price tag.
A new estimate by weather data platform AccuWeather puts the total cost between $250 and $275 billion and calls the damage “catastrophic.” The full cost of the wildfires won’t be clear until long after the smoke clears, and expensive rebuilding efforts could take years.
If this projection is accurate, these fires will surpass Hurricane Katrina and will be the costliest disaster in U.S. history by a wide margin.
The primary reason why these fires are so costly is because property values in some of the areas that burned are extremely high…
Part of the reason that the LA fires are so costly is because of the area’s high property values, Schlegelmilch said. The severely impacted Pacific Palisades neighborhood, for example, is home to several celebrities and has an average home value of $3.5 million.
What makes all of this so tragic is that most of the homes that burned could have been saved.
A former U.S. attorney named Michel Valentine says that he called in the Palisades Fire when it originally broke out, but it took almost 45 minutes for a helicopter to show up and dump water on it…
Valentine — who said he lives at the top of the Pacific Palisades, next to the ridge line where the fire broke out — described seeing the initial plume of smoke grow rapidly in size last Tuesday. The former federal attorney said his wife called 911, but it took nearly 45 minutes for a helicopter to respond and dump water on the fire.
“I have no idea why that is,” Valentine said, responding to why it took so long to respond. “It could have been confined. It wouldn’t have touched any of the homes.”
“You’re talking to somebody that’s been up in this community for 40 years, and I’ve seen fires. I’ve seen fires during those 40 years, and there’s always been a good response. I don’t know what happened this time,” he added.
By the time that first helicopter showed up, it was too late. The fire had already become well established and high winds were spreading it rapidly.
Now we have an unprecedented disaster on our hands.
Millions upon millions of people are breathing in the smoke that has been produced by these fires, and the health impact of all that smoke will be felt for years to come.
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written eight other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.