Why smoke from the Los Angeles fires is so dangerous
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Wildfires in California aren’t all wild anymore. They often burn in urban areas, creating a toxic soup of smoke, ash and noxious substances that can be dangerous, even deadly.
In Los Angeles this week, wildfires have burned buildings and roadways. Incinerating the plastics, metals and other materials that these structures are built from releases hazardous chemicals and gases into the air, doctors and public-health experts say. Wildfires which tear through urban landscapes release chemicals from human-made fuels, construction materials, household products and generate emissions which are chemically different from wildland fires, according to a 2022 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
About 70,000 communities and 43 million homes are at risk from fires that could burn through both wild and urban landscapes, the report stated. “The combination of wildfire smoke in conjunction with human elements might be even more dangerous," said Dr. Sanjay Rajagopalan, chief of cardiovascular medicine at University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute in Cleveland.
“When you burn plastic, for instance, or you burn rubber, you get some pretty nasty stuff." Smoke from the Los Angeles wildfires could have far-reaching effects. Depending on weather patterns and geographic conditions, smoke can travel vast distances. Tens of thousands of Los Angeles County residents have already been ordered to evacuate.
“You can be hundreds of miles away and still have the effects of wildfire smoke on your health," said Dr. Kari Nadeau, a physician and chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who has studied the health
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