So . . . Canada's on fire, and it's unsafe to breathe the air again :(

[GuitarStv]

I've been watching the out of control wildfires in Saskatchewan for a little more than a week now, with some interest.  Partly hoping that it wasn't going to be like 2023 where the air became black enough with soot to block out the sun here, thousands of kilometers away in Toronto.  Last night and then again today we've entered an air quality index of 10 and 11 a few times . . . so that hope has been dashed.

Wildfire smoke tracker - https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/

AQI tracker - https://aqicn.org/city/toronto/






Dammit.  I'm so old I remember when you could walk out of your house without worrying about the air poisoning you.

[jrhampt]

Yes, we’ve been getting the smoke here this week.  I also remember when this wasn’t normal.

[GuitarStv]

I know that bad air quality with all the particulate that comes from soot is terrible for you . . . everyone seems to agree on that.  What I haven't been able to figure out though, is specifics that help someone figure out where the trade-offs exist when trying to live your life.

If the AQI is up around 8-11 and you spend 90% of your day inside behind a decent air filter, how much damage actually happens if you go out for an hour or two?  Is that better or worse than staying inside for the whole day with a shitty air filter?  How much lung damage and additional cancer risk am I getting by going outside in an AQI of 4 vs 6 vs 8 vs 10 or 11?  How does this compare to say, smoking a cigarette or standing around a bonfire?  At what point does going for a jog in the smoke become more damaging to your body than the exercise benefits it?

Given that this seems like a thing we're going to be dealing with forever, I would love to have some answers and guidance along these lines.

[PoutineLover]

I would be very curious as well. I have really young kids and I chose to drive 10 mins instead of walk 40 mins today because I thought it would be safer for them, but I hate using the car for short errands and that driving makes the air quality even worse. Now my dog will need a walk too but I don't know if it's safer to skip it. Really upsetting that this seems to be our new normal.

[RetiredAt63]

I'm digging out my Covid masks for outside.

[sonofsven]

If it's really bad I would wear an N95 dust mask. I buy them by the box (10 per).
I already wore them daily doing construction, now I've been wearing one to mow or weed whack.
I think they'd be pretty effective for smoke and soot.

[GilesMM]

DIY air purifiers work pretty well.

[Kmp2]

Those CR boxes do work wonderfully at keeping air clean in the house! We have 4 (one for each bedroom and the main room).

I still remember waking up to 800+ AQI (thinks pea soup smog, can't see the street lights across the street!), with the window open and a newborn sleeping nearby (I will never not feel guilty for that). Having clean air in the house means I don't feel as bad about having the kids out to play a few hours a day (and they are really good at wearing smoke masks! Thanks to Covid for training them!)

Journalist Kyle Brittain has a good graph of area burned over the last decade... 2023 is wild!
https://x.com/BadWeatherKyle/status/1930749862880088539

[AuspiciousEight]

I have made a mental note to bring my HEPA filters, gas masks, and N95 respirators with me to Canada after democracy fails in America.

[Wintergreen78]

I know that bad air quality with all the particulate that comes from soot is terrible for you . . . everyone seems to agree on that.  What I haven't been able to figure out though, is specifics that help someone figure out where the trade-offs exist when trying to live your life.

If the AQI is up around 8-11 and you spend 90% of your day inside behind a decent air filter, how much damage actually happens if you go out for an hour or two?  Is that better or worse than staying inside for the whole day with a shitty air filter?  How much lung damage and additional cancer risk am I getting by going outside in an AQI of 4 vs 6 vs 8 vs 10 or 11?  How does this compare to say, smoking a cigarette or standing around a bonfire?  At what point does going for a jog in the smoke become more damaging to your body than the exercise benefits it?

Given that this seems like a thing we're going to be dealing with forever, I would love to have some answers and guidance along these lines.

I live in California. A few years ago I tried to find information about long-term health impacts of wildfire smoke and struck out. All the information I found was related to acute health impacts. I expect the lack of concrete information is more related to lack of research. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if people figure out that it does have long term health impacts.

We put HEPA filters inside our office during a bad fire and ran Purpleair particulate monitors. The HEPA filters made a significant difference in the indoor air quality. If I was being exposed to wildfire smoke on a regular basis, I would strongly consider getting a filter to run indoors.

[RetiredAt63]

I remember visiting a historical village in Cape Breton years ago. They had a replica of the stone houses built in the northern Scottish Islands.   The fire was on a central hearth and the smoke left through a smoke hole.  Apparently the settlers coming from these houses had very bad lungs.

And how is this any different from second hand cigarette smoke?  Or asbestos? Small particles get into the alveoli and cause damage.

Masks and air filters.

[jrhampt]

I would also like to know how dangerous it is to go running in the smoke, and at what air quality levels it becomes dangerous.  I did get an air filter for the house a couple years ago when it first got really bad for the second summer in a row and I realized this would be a reoccurring issue.

[Kmp2]

What I'd like to see is solid guidelines for playing outdoor sports and schools. At the moment we cancel games/practices/move things inside when the AQHI (Environment Canada) is 7 or above.
However, as environment Canada is a 3 hour moving average, and we've had heavy smoke blow in where we've then played more than once in 10+ conditions.
We once had an outdoor festival for school that was given the go ahead, because environment Canada forecasted that the air was going to improve to a 6 in time, but it didn't. The whole school was out in 10+.

Further, when we run at 5/6 for days, or weeks even on end... I don't think the same guidelines should apply.

These are no longer one-off events that kids can play through. This has been our summer for almost a decade now, we have to adapt.

Calgary saw 50+ smoke hours twice and averaged 12.5 hours a year from 1990 - 2014, since 2015 we've averaged 238 smoke hours a year, and seen over 400 hours in three years!
In 2023 we saw 512 smoke hours, that's almost 6% of the year, or 14% of our 'summer' (May thru September).

edited to add the data link: https://climate-and-environment-dashboard-thecityofcalgary.hub.arcgis.com/pages/people-smoke-hours

[mtnrider]

I've been watching the out of control wildfires in Saskatchewan for a little more than a week now, with some interest.  Partly hoping that it wasn't going to be like 2023 where the air became black enough with soot to block out the sun here, thousands of kilometers away in Toronto.  Last night and then again today we've entered an air quality index of 10 and 11 a few times . . . so that hope has been dashed.

Wildfire smoke tracker - https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/

AQI tracker - https://aqicn.org/city/toronto/






Dammit.  I'm so old I remember when you could walk out of your house without worrying about the air poisoning you.

Cool smoke tracker!

The northeast US air is full of smoke!  I'm blaming that on why I'm bad at hill repeats now.

It actually reminds me of back in the day, when we used to get horrible ozone smog in the 1980s.  Back then it was due to car tailpipes and midwest factory smokestacks. 

[okits]

Dammit.  I'm so old I remember when you could walk out of your house without worrying about the air poisoning you.

It wasn't that long ago, to be honest.

I felt like I could taste the air when I went outside today, and not in a good way.  I should have N95ed it.

[GuitarStv]

What I'd like to see is solid guidelines for playing outdoor sports and schools. At the moment we cancel games/practices/move things inside when the AQHI (Environment Canada) is 7 or above.
However, as environment Canada is a 3 hour moving average, and we've had heavy smoke blow in where we've then played more than once in 10+ conditions.
We once had an outdoor festival for school that was given the go ahead, because environment Canada forecasted that the air was going to improve to a 6 in time, but it didn't. The whole school was out in 10+.

Further, when we run at 5/6 for days, or weeks even on end... I don't think the same guidelines should apply.

These are no longer one-off events that kids can play through. This has been our summer for almost a decade now, we have to adapt.

Calgary saw 50+ smoke hours twice and averaged 12.5 hours a year from 1990 - 2014, since 2015 we've averaged 238 smoke hours a year, and seen over 400 hours in three years!
In 2023 we saw 512 smoke hours, that's almost 6% of the year, or 14% of our 'summer' (May thru September).

edited to add the data link: https://climate-and-environment-dashboard-thecityofcalgary.hub.arcgis.com/pages/people-smoke-hours

Yeah, these are the kinds of questions I'd like answered too.

Last night my son's school was having an outdoor 'fun fair' when the air quality turned rapidly from a 3-4 to a 9 on the AQI.  We have no system in place to deal with that, so nobody figured out what was going on or if they did there wasn't any policy to reschedule.

I have a 50 lb high energy dog who needs a lot of exercise.  Indoor games aren't really a substitute for running around in a field chasing a frisbee, or going to the dog park.  What levels of smoke are doing her (and me) serious/worrying damage?  Is an hour and a half at 6 OK?  What about 30 minutes at 9?

Based on not being able to find anything online, I'm starting to think that just nobody knows or has studied it somehow.

[Cassie]

Living on the West Coast, I have lived through my fair share of fires in the last 28 years. I developed asthma 20 years ago and when our air is bad, I wear a mask and only go from my house to the car and then drive to where I need to go. Luckily my dogs are small so I can exercise them by throwing their toys inside. I like to take a walk every day so I bought myself a pedal machine to use when this happens.

One summer I was basically stuck inside for an entire month and it was terrible. In the US they rate the air as not suitable for people with respiratory problems all the way up to no one should be outside when it’s in the red zone. From the numbers you guys are using, it sounds like our system is different too. My sister lives in Chicago and they’ve been getting the smoke from Canada.

[RetiredAt63]

What I'd like to see is solid guidelines for playing outdoor sports and schools. At the moment we cancel games/practices/move things inside when the AQHI (Environment Canada) is 7 or above.
However, as environment Canada is a 3 hour moving average, and we've had heavy smoke blow in where we've then played more than once in 10+ conditions.
We once had an outdoor festival for school that was given the go ahead, because environment Canada forecasted that the air was going to improve to a 6 in time, but it didn't. The whole school was out in 10+.

Further, when we run at 5/6 for days, or weeks even on end... I don't think the same guidelines should apply.

These are no longer one-off events that kids can play through. This has been our summer for almost a decade now, we have to adapt.

Calgary saw 50+ smoke hours twice and averaged 12.5 hours a year from 1990 - 2014, since 2015 we've averaged 238 smoke hours a year, and seen over 400 hours in three years!
In 2023 we saw 512 smoke hours, that's almost 6% of the year, or 14% of our 'summer' (May thru September).

edited to add the data link: https://climate-and-environment-dashboard-thecityofcalgary.hub.arcgis.com/pages/people-smoke-hours

Yeah, these are the kinds of questions I'd like answered too.

Last night my son's school was having an outdoor 'fun fair' when the air quality turned rapidly from a 3-4 to a 9 on the AQI.  We have no system in place to deal with that, so nobody figured out what was going on or if they did there wasn't any policy to reschedule.

I have a 50 lb high energy dog who needs a lot of exercise.  Indoor games aren't really a substitute for running around in a field chasing a frisbee, or going to the dog park.  What levels of smoke are doing her (and me) serious/worrying damage?  Is an hour and a half at 6 OK?  What about 30 minutes at 9?

Based[/b on not being able to find anything online, I'm starting to think that just nobody knows or has studied it somehow.

.

If you are willing to read more technical stuff, google scholar and the search words "high wildfire smoke levels exercise" pulls up lots of articles.

[Just Joe]

I would also like to know how dangerous it is to go running in the smoke, and at what air quality levels it becomes dangerous.  I did get an air filter for the house a couple years ago when it first got really bad for the second summer in a row and I realized this would be a reoccurring issue.

How dangerous is it for the person I saw yesterday jogging next to four lanes of city traffic? That one bothers me.

[deborah]

This was put out by the Australian Institute of Sport (where our elite athletes train for things like the Olympic Games) after the 2019 - 2020 fires which sent smoke completely around the world.

https://www.ais.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1111098/37016_Exercise-in-bushfire-smoke.pdf

[GuitarStv]

This was put out by the Australian Institute of Sport (where our elite athletes train for things like the Olympic Games) after the 2019 - 2020 fires which sent smoke completely around the world.

https://www.ais.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1111098/37016_Exercise-in-bushfire-smoke.pdf

Well, that's not making me feel any better.


PM 2.5 from 51 to 150 - Poor conditions for exercise
• It is highly recommended to complete prolonged high intensity endurance activities (e.g., rowing,
cycling, long-distance running) in a facility with better air quality
• Intermittent exercise (e.g., tennis, netball, beach volleyball, cricket) and power activities (e.g., sprint
training, javelin training, jump training, rugby skills training) represent less risk than prolonged high
intensity endurance activities. However, risk remains elevated above baseline and susceptible athletes
should have a current asthma management plan and relevant medications accessible during the session
• Non susceptible individuals may unexpectedly develop symptoms at these concentrations and should seek medical review early

PM 2.5 of over 150 - Hazardous to exercise outdoors
• All efforts should be made to reduce smoke exposure as much as is practical
• Reschedule events, relocate them indoors, shorten overall time outdoors etc.
• Where there is an intention to play organised high level sport and there are medical staff on site to advise,
these levels of pollution should trigger a discussion between medical staff and officials about the
advisability or otherwise of proceeding with the event.



Consecutive days of exposure to polluted air can have a cumulative effect, lowering an athlete’s threshold for symptoms.  There is no research into the effects of repeated smoke exposure. This should be considered if your region has been exposed to increased smoke for several days in succession


Acute smoke exposure also results in dose dependent changes to the local immune cell presence in the lower respiratory tract. In patients admitted to an intensive care burns unit, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid demonstrated a shift towards a predominant neutrophil presence in those with worse smoke inhalation injury. (34) The normal macrophage percentage from BAL fluid is 95% and 0.7% for neutrophils. (35) Patients with a grade 0 (no injury) according to the Abbreviated Injury Score demonstrated 41% of neutrophils and 54% macrophages, compared to 94% neutrophils with 6% macrophages in the highest
severity grade 4 category (34) BAL neutrophilia is an indication of the acute inflammatory response caused by the bushfire smoke.

Similar, but lower magnitude changes have also been observed in young healthy firefighters who had a controlled exposure to woodfire smoke. After woodfire smoke exposure standardised at a PM 2.5 of 485ug/m 3 for two hours including a light cycling activity. Bronchoalveolar lavage was conducted 20 hours post intervention. A significant increase of absolute neutrophil percentage to above 8% (36) was observed. Moreover, when healthy participants were exposed to woodfire smoke at 224 ug/m3 for
3 hours with mild aerobic exercises, no changes to BAL cell counts 24 hours after exposure was observed. (37) It is possible that exposure at a level between these two exposure conditions is where healthy individuals begin to experience subclinical effects.

An absolute neutrophil percentage equal to or greater than 50% is generally considered diagnostically supportive of acute lung injury, aspiration pneumonia or suppurative infection. (38) The exposure studies noted above indicate the minimum exposure that
can initiate a localised neutrophilia is likely between 224 ug/m3 and 485 ug/m3, for 2-3 hours. (36, 37) Both studies (36, 38) reported there were no changes in pulmonary function, and a paucity of symptoms. Importantly, these studies were only a one-off exposure without an elevated background exposure. Currently there is no evidence regarding the time required to recover from a one-off exposure or compounding effects of repeating the exposure prior to recovery.


Long-term consequences of bushfire smoke exposure, and other sources of air pollution, are beyond the scope of this position statement.


In June of 2023 we had 21 of 30 days where readings were at or above the 'poor conditions for exercise' level.  We were at PM2.5 reading of 75 or higher most of last week,  and looks like we'll be in the 100 - 180 range for the rest of this week according to forecasts, with today, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday going into hazardous territory.

[Villanelle]

DIY air purifiers work pretty well.

I made something similar when we got the wildfire smoke a couple years ago.  I had 2 air filters on hand so I just made a triangle off the back and then used cardboard (from the box the fan came in) to enclose the top and bottom, thereby forcing the air through the 2 filtered sides. 

We are having some hardscape work done and they were cutting concrete and paver stones (and the crew was doing this without any masks or eye protection! and the particals were getting in to the house, so I dragged out my filter fan again.  Miracuously, it was packed and moved, put in a storage unit for about a month, and then moved again into our new home, and is still intact and air tight! 

[deborah]

This was put out by the Australian Institute of Sport (where our elite athletes train for things like the Olympic Games) after the 2019 - 2020 fires which sent smoke completely around the world.

https://www.ais.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/1111098/37016_Exercise-in-bushfire-smoke.pdf

Well, that's not making me feel any better.


PM 2.5 from 51 to 150 - Poor conditions for exercise
• It is highly recommended to complete prolonged high intensity endurance activities (e.g., rowing,
cycling, long-distance running) in a facility with better air quality
• Intermittent exercise (e.g., tennis, netball, beach volleyball, cricket) and power activities (e.g., sprint
training, javelin training, jump training, rugby skills training) represent less risk than prolonged high
intensity endurance activities. However, risk remains elevated above baseline and susceptible athletes
should have a current asthma management plan and relevant medications accessible during the session
• Non susceptible individuals may unexpectedly develop symptoms at these concentrations and should seek medical review early

PM 2.5 of over 150 - Hazardous to exercise outdoors
• All efforts should be made to reduce smoke exposure as much as is practical
• Reschedule events, relocate them indoors, shorten overall time outdoors etc.
• Where there is an intention to play organised high level sport and there are medical staff on site to advise,
these levels of pollution should trigger a discussion between medical staff and officials about the
advisability or otherwise of proceeding with the event.



Consecutive days of exposure to polluted air can have a cumulative effect, lowering an athlete’s threshold for symptoms.  There is no research into the effects of repeated smoke exposure. This should be considered if your region has been exposed to increased smoke for several days in succession


Acute smoke exposure also results in dose dependent changes to the local immune cell presence in the lower respiratory tract. In patients admitted to an intensive care burns unit, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid demonstrated a shift towards a predominant neutrophil presence in those with worse smoke inhalation injury. (34) The normal macrophage percentage from BAL fluid is 95% and 0.7% for neutrophils. (35) Patients with a grade 0 (no injury) according to the Abbreviated Injury Score demonstrated 41% of neutrophils and 54% macrophages, compared to 94% neutrophils with 6% macrophages in the highest
severity grade 4 category (34) BAL neutrophilia is an indication of the acute inflammatory response caused by the bushfire smoke.

Similar, but lower magnitude changes have also been observed in young healthy firefighters who had a controlled exposure to woodfire smoke. After woodfire smoke exposure standardised at a PM 2.5 of 485ug/m 3 for two hours including a light cycling activity. Bronchoalveolar lavage was conducted 20 hours post intervention. A significant increase of absolute neutrophil percentage to above 8% (36) was observed. Moreover, when healthy participants were exposed to woodfire smoke at 224 ug/m3 for
3 hours with mild aerobic exercises, no changes to BAL cell counts 24 hours after exposure was observed. (37) It is possible that exposure at a level between these two exposure conditions is where healthy individuals begin to experience subclinical effects.

An absolute neutrophil percentage equal to or greater than 50% is generally considered diagnostically supportive of acute lung injury, aspiration pneumonia or suppurative infection. (38) The exposure studies noted above indicate the minimum exposure that
can initiate a localised neutrophilia is likely between 224 ug/m3 and 485 ug/m3, for 2-3 hours. (36, 37) Both studies (36, 38) reported there were no changes in pulmonary function, and a paucity of symptoms. Importantly, these studies were only a one-off exposure without an elevated background exposure. Currently there is no evidence regarding the time required to recover from a one-off exposure or compounding effects of repeating the exposure prior to recovery.


Long-term consequences of bushfire smoke exposure, and other sources of air pollution, are beyond the scope of this position statement.


In June of 2023 we had 21 of 30 days where readings were at or above the 'poor conditions for exercise' level.  We were at PM2.5 reading of 75 or higher most of last week,  and looks like we'll be in the 100 - 180 range for the rest of this week according to forecasts, with today, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday going into hazardous territory.

At least you now have something to wave under the noses of people trying to get your kids to exercise in inappropriate conditions.

Where I live was less than a kilometre from the station that recorded the worst air quality in the world for a couple of months during those fires. I understand what you’re going through. It was absolutely awful. Like a permanent smelly fog for three months. COVID19 was a relief.

[Kris]

I’m in Minnesota. This is the second year in a row where wildfires have made our air quality hazardous in late spring/early summer. And at the same time, our temps are cooler because our skies are hazier. I think this is just a new normal now for us in late May and early June.

We will all be seeing various effects of climate change going forward. Things like this. Things that are not necessarily just the temps trending toward “a little warmer.”