how to stay safe in wildfire smoke
some tips from personal experience, plus the signs as soup
i live in vancouver, so i’m no stranger to wildfire smoke. i remember waking up one morning in the summer of 2015, looking out my window, seeing a red sky and thinking “huh, i must be dreaming” and went back to sleep. i woke up and it was still red, so i instantly knew something was really, really wrong.
thus began the regular occurrence of wildfire smoke shrouding the city of vancouver every summer. the smoke lingered for most of august, and i didn’t realize how damaging the smoke would be on my lungs. i went outside a lot to do errands and hang out with my friends, sometimes spending hours outside breathing in this smoke. in the summer of 2017, i had a full time hostessing job that had no AC and the door was always open, so when the smoke came back because of a fire in williams lake, i had to be on my feet for many hours of the day constantly breathing in heavy smoke. my throat and eyes burned, everyone was coughing, but we just had to work through it. this would eventually do permanent damage to my lungs and i developed adult-onset asthma.
once i learned that the smoke had been this detrimental to my health, i started to take it a lot more seriously. i already felt really bad anxiety from the dark sky and climate anxiety beforehand, but now it was compounded by severe health anxiety. any time the smoke returned in the summer, my chest would tighten and i couldn’t tell the difference between my anxiety and my asthma. i found out that wearing an N95 mask when i have to leave the house and getting an air purifier would help, and sure enough, it actually did.
now, dealing with wildfire smoke has become a routine thing, albeit a terrifying routine. the smell of wood burning, regardless of the source, triggers panic attacks for me. but knowing i have tools to protect myself helps that health anxiety, so i’m only left with the climate anxiety and grief (still fucking sucks).
since so many people in eastern canada and the united states are experiencing wildfire smoke for the first time, many people don’t know what to do to protect themselves, or just how damaging smoke can be on your body. so here are some tips for mitigating your risk when air quality is bad, and this goes for anyone worldwide in polluted conditions. if you’ve been rawdogging the air outside, it’s not too late to implement mitigation measures.
first, know what you’re breathing in
when a wildfire is creating smoke, a lot of things are getting burned up, and it’s not the same as breathing in smoke from a campfire. you’re breathing in fine particulate matter from burned up wood, but also other organic matter like plants and animals, any trash and refuse in the forests, fields, and mountains, which includes plastics (very toxic to breathe the fumes of!). If houses are being burned down by a wildfire, you’re breathing in particulate and fumes from burned up materials of those houses, which can be a combination of wood, plastic, metals, and anything inside of that house. it’s something to take very seriously, because a lot of the burned material could be extremely toxic.
wear a mask
get yourself an N95 mask (or equivalent) and make sure it fits your face really well. you don’t want leakage around the nose area, the cheek area, or the chin area. it’s the same idea as sealing your mask to keep you safe from covid. the best mask is the one that fits you best. my favourites are the vitacore can95 and can99 masks, and for fun colours, the kaze kn95 masks are fun. i also like airqueen kf94s for a really lightweight mask (i get these at hmart). one of the best masks you can get is the 3M aura 9205+, and it fits a lot of peoples faces well. high quality masks will help protect you from fine particulate matter that’s produced by fires, and it will also help protect you against covid. it’s worth remembering that wildfire smoke makes covid symptoms worse, and developing lung problems from covid will make wildfire smoke worse. avoid both, wear a mask in public places!
get (or build) an air purifier
an air purifier makes a HUGE difference in your indoor air quality. make sure you get one with a HEPA filter that does filter PM2.5. i have used a honeywell HPA204 for the last 6 years and it is one of my most prized possessions. you do need to change the pre-filter and HEPA filter every few months, but it will show a little indicator light when it’s time to change it out. the filters aren’t cheap, but if you only use the air purifier during wildfire season, you don’t need to buy them as often. HEPA air purifiers are also really effective for pollen and pet dander, as well as cleaning airborne covid particles out of the air. run it when you have friends over to reduce your chances of getting covid, or at least make the viral load lower if someone is asymptomatic!
if air purifiers are sold out where you are, you can build a corsi-rosenthal box. these are easy to put together with things you can easily find at home depot. if you can’t afford to make a full corsi-rosenthal box, just one HEPA or MERV 13 filter taped over a fan you already own will help significantly.
keep your windows and doors closed
it’s really important to keep the smoke out of your home from the source. if you have cracks in your windows and doors, place damp towels around the cracks to catch the particulate matter and seal it off from outside. if you’re wondering how you’ll get breathable air in your house if its sealed off, your house or apartment has vents, and central air systems have filters generally. if you have a vent that goes directly outside, you can place a HEPA filter over it to filter that air coming inside. i did this and it made a difference!
reduce or eliminate any time spent outside as much as you can
if you don’t have to leave your house, don’t! if you need to go to work, wear a mask on your commute at the very least, and you should still wear it at work since the air inside your workplace is probably bad too (employers generally don’t care about your health enough to mitigate these problems, that’s why covid is still a problem). if you need to get some movement or exercise in, do it in your house. if you exercise outside, you’re doing your body way more harm than good, because you’ll be breathing the particulate matter even deeper into your lungs than if you were to simply walk or stand. you can pace around or walk in place if you need to get some steps in, and doing some light yoga is really great for dealing with the anxiety that comes from seeing a red sky. don’t over-exert yourself though if you’re unsure that the air inside is clean. only take your dog out for the shortest possible walk for a quick bathroom break, because smoke is even more damaging on our pets’ lungs.
drink lots of water and add humidity to your living space
staying hydrated ensures your body can product enough mucus in your lungs to capture fine particulate matter you breathe in! and keeping your living space humid allows smoke particles that come in to get captures by water particles suspended in the air. obviously don’t make it so humid it’s unlivable, but filling your tub with cold water will help add water to the air and also cool your living space a little bit (which is great if you can’t run your AC due to the air quality). if your throat is really sore, my favourite drink to make is hot water with honey, lemon, and ginger. it soothes the throat and also calms me down.
for extra peace of mind, get an air quality monitor
the thing that helped my anxiety the most during wildfire season is getting an air quality monitor. i got this temtop M10 off amazon, and it shows you the PM2.5 level in your home, as well as formaldehyde and volatile organic chemical (VOC) levels. not only does it help me stay aware of any wildfire smoke or other fine particulate matter, it also helped me realize i needed to ventilate my apartment better when cooking because my formaldehyde and VOC levels were through the fucking roof!
a great free option for monitoring air quality is using purpleair.com, where people buy air quality monitors and set them up outside and inside and connect them to the internet so anyone can see the air quality in a given area. it’s a really reliable way of seeing how the air quality is around you, as well as how it is in other people’s homes.
keep track of the smoke
smoke forecasting is about as unpredictable, if not more, than the weather. nevertheless, different models exist for forecasting where the smoke from wildfires is going to go using metereological data. a canadian resource is firesmoke.ca, but it shows a lot of the US too and is really accurate in my experience. a new forecast is done at 2am, 8am, 2pm, and 8pm PST. the government of canada also has a tool called firework that’s updated at midnight and noon UTC.
an american resource is the NOAA smoke modelling visualization, but it’s not super user friendly if you’re not a metereology nerd. if you choose “near surface smoke” under the “HRRR” category, you can go through the most recent forecasts for smoke that could be detrimental to your health. vertically integrated smoke is smoke higher up that you won’t necessarily breathe in, so near surface smoke is the thing you really have to worry about.
the signs as soup
aries - tom kha gai
taurus - lobster bisque
gemini - phở
cancer - chicken noodle
leo - matzo ball soup
virgo - miso soup
libra - egg drop soup
scorpio - borscht
sagittarius - avgolemono
capricorn - bone broth
aquarius - gumbo
pisces - bún bò huế