Without a major policy shift, more private homes will burn and more public money will be spent trying to protect them

Not all can be saved: A Fire Boss amphibious air tanker dumps 200 gallons of water over the Tunnel 5 Fire. The house in flames (left) and directly beneath the water drop were completely destroyed. Photo: Jurgen Hess

By Jurgen Hess. August 3, 2023. On July 2, the Tunnel 5 Fire began in Underwood, Washington, about two miles west of the town of White Salmon in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

Before being 80% contained by mid-July, the fire scorched 529 acres and destroyed 10 structures, mostly homes. At least 40 fire engines, 256 firefighters and other personnel, five helicopters, six dozers and 16 water tenders were employed to fight the blaze.

The cost is still being calculated, but a single retardant drop by jet airplane on the Tunnel 5 Fire cost as much as $12,400.

The expense for fighting the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge eventually reached $40 million.

For two weeks, the Tunnel 5 Fire provided a shocking and unsettling sight as flames and smoke billowed above a stretch of the Columbia River dotted with large, cliff-top homes.

But it was hardly unprecedented.

In 2007, the Broughton Fire burned 200 acres and seven structures (including five houses) in the precise location.

That fire was caused by the BNSF Railway Company’s grinding of nearby railroad tracks. “Track grinding” or “rail grinding” repairs deformities and corrosion of rail tracks due to heavy use. The process creates sparks.

The cause of the Tunnel 5 Fire remains under investigation.

Close call: The Tunnel 5 Fire blew up steep slopes carried by fuels of trees, shrubs and grass. This house was fortunate to be spared from the fire. Photo: Jurgen Hess

Two wildfires in the exact location in just 16 years—is this simply a coincidence, a supreme stroke of bad luck?

Unfortunately no.

The Broughton and Tunnel 5 Fires burned, proved so difficult to fight and were wildly expensive to contain for similar reasons.

Might another catastrophic blaze burn in the same area in the near future?

Unfortunately it’s likely.

The reasons have to do with the geography of the area around Underwood and particular regulations that govern private property in the National Scenic Area.

But they also point to broader issues involving the encroachment of residential homes in heavily forested areas, and the way the U.S. Forest Service currently prioritizes private real estate (i.e., houses) over public resources (i.e., trees and surrounding habitat) when fighting fires.

Is such a policy wise? Is it in the public’s interest?

With national insurance companies beginning to refuse to issue policies for homes in some parts of the country due to “growing catastrophic exposure,” is it time to reconsider the construction of houses in fire-prone areas and the way we fight nearby fires when they inevitably come?

Recipe for disaster

Located along Washington State Route 14 at the confluence of the White Salmon and Columbia Rivers, Underwood is an unincorporated community within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Its position atop a set of bluffs commands fantastic views of the Columbia River Gorge and, across the river into Oregon, Mount Hood.

But the bluffs atop which the community sits are so steep they form a nearly vertical wall.

In summer, these slopes are covered with highly flammable dry grass, brush and trees. One source of ignition and a decent wind are all that’s needed to send fires roaring up the hillside. (In the first days of the Tunnel 5 Fire, winds gusted between 35 and 40 mph.)

Heaven meet Hell: Slopes below Cook Underwood Road burned right up to the hilltop houses. Photo: Jurgen Hess

At the bottom of the bluffs, SR-14 and adjacent railroad tracks—both proven and potent sources of ignition—parallel the river.

At the top of the bluffs, Cook Underwood Road is lined with over 50 houses, each surrounded by forest, trees and brush.

The recipe for disaster is obvious.

“We can’t stop the fires, [we] shouldn’t build there,” Robin Dobson, a retired U.S. Forest Service ecologist who worked in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area for 24 years, told Columbia Insight after the Tunnel 5 Fire. “We need to use our common sense.”

“Nobody thinks [fire] can happen to them, but the reality is that it does,” said Dan Harkenrider, USFS National Scenic Area manager from 2001 to 2011.

How Firewise are we?

In 2002, recognizing the growing problem of wildfires in rural residential areas (especially California), the National Fire Protection Agency created an educational program called Firewise Communities USA. The idea was to teach homeowners best practices for how to live “fire wise” in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas as a way to mitigate potential wildfire losses.

Firewise measures include removing shrubbery and trees close to home ignition points by creating a “lean, clean and green landscape” zone; using fire-resistant building materials; screening house vents; and keeping gutters free of burnable material.

Dan Richardson, Underwood Conservation District, Climate and Community Resilience lead, administers the Firewise program in Underwood by doing a wildfire home hazard assessment.

Passing grade: Dan Richardson (right) conducts a Firewise review at the Columbia River Gorge home of Luci Walker and Kevin Widener. Photo: Jurgen Hess

On a recent visit to the home of Luci Walker and Kevin Widener (north of Cook Underwood Road, not in the immediate area of burned houses), Richardson walked around the perimeter of the home looking for vegetation too close the house.

After explaining that most house fires are started by glowing embers, he noted that all vents in the house were well screened and that the house siding was made of unburnable cement board. The gutters were largely empty of burnable debris. There was no bark dust, which is very flammable.

A small juniper plant was recommended for removal.

A question arose of what to do about a long line of large Douglas fir trees on the east property line. Those trees could carry a crown fire.

Richardson concluded that picking up limbs and debris, cutting branches to a height of 10 feet and thinning out smaller trees would help reduce fire risk.

Overall, the homeowners got a report that the house met Firewise standards, with a few recommendations for improvement.

Conflicting guidelines

The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Management Plan includes provisions for implementing Firewise practices.

“The reviewing agency shall provide information on Firewise standards to landowners at the time of application (for a building permit),” states the plan. “Landowners shall be encouraged to incorporate Firewise standards in their proposal.”

Fire-risk directions are also included in the Gorge Commission’s recently adopted Climate Change Action Plan.

But Lisa Naas Cook, a planner with the Gorge Commission, says meeting National Scenic Area standards of scenic preservation and reducing fire risk is a tricky dance.

That’s because homeowners in the Gorge are bound by National Scenic Area Management Plan regulations that require houses be screened with trees or other vegetation to meet scenic-protection measures.

Air war: Black spots in the sky during the Tunnel 5 Fire are hot embers driven by upslope winds. During wildland fires, embers are the primary ignition source for house fires. Photo: Jurgen Hess

In a way it feels like a trap, with Firewise and National Scenic Area guidelines appearing to be at odds.

“Absolutely there is a conflict between fire safety (and scenic standards),” said ecologist Dobson.

Cook said the Commission plans to take a closer look at the issue during its next Management Plan review.

According to the Gorge Commission’s website, the Commission can amend its plan “if it finds that conditions in the National Scenic Area have significantly changed.”

At this time, however, there is no proposal on record to amend the plan.

During the public input phase of the Climate Change Action Plan development, several members of the public argued for more stringent standards to reduce fire risk.

Janet Wainwright, a former Gorge commissioner, wrote: “Mandate (not suggest) all new construction adhere to Firewise standards. Make this one of the requirements of application approval.”

But such measures can do only so much to prevent wildfires from burning homes built within forests and other wilderness areas.

“Homeowners who live in forested settings must take responsibility and prepare their property to survive wildfire rather than relying on firefighters to save their homes,” said Jack Cohen, a USFS research scientist. “Because during intense fire conditions firefighters will likely be overwhelmed.”

Private property vs. public treasure

When fighting fires, USFS policy dictates that saving human lives is the top priority, followed by saving property, such as houses and businesses.

This became a problem when the Tunnel 5 Fire struck. Firefighters weren’t sent onto the steep slopes below the Underwood houses due to safety risks.

“It’s just too hazardous for firefighters to work on the steep ground,” Bobby Shindelar of Northwest Incident Management Team 12 told Columbia Gorge News.

Instead, at a great financial cost, aircraft dropped water and retardant on the steep slopes.

Extreme slopes: It’s not just flames and smoke that imperil firefighters. Treacherous inclines, like those faced by these Tunnel 5 firefighters, introduce another level of danger. Photo: Wash. DNR

Firewise is good practice, but after an event like the Tunnel 5 Fire it’s reasonable to wonder how much homeowners can realistically do to prevent the loss of property constructed in such an obviously precarious place.

Shifting attitudes of insurance companies may also become a factor in the way we view fighting fires.

On May 26, State Farm Insurance announced it would no longer accept applications for home and business insurance in California due to “historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure and a challenging reinsurance market.”

Some of those increased construction costs and catastrophic exposures are related to high fire risk and requirements to make new homes fire-safe.

In conversations with Columbia Insight, County Commissioner Lennon, Scenic Area Manager Harkenrider and several Tunnel 5 firefighters said they believed insurance policies would be a “check” and on future construction in fire-hazard zones.

But David Waymie, director of the Skamania County Public Works and Planning Department, which administers building permits in the area of the Tunnel 5 Fire, said his department is unlikely to require fire-protection measures for homes being rebuilt in the wake of the fire.

But, he said, “there is a risk in living in the forest. While the view is tremendous, there is a fire danger.”

Homeowners in Skamania County have two years to start the process of replacing a burned house.

Same old, same old?

Another fire in Underwood is likely because conditions that led to the previous two fires will remain stable.

SR-14 isn’t going anywhere. Neither are the railroad tracks nor the steep, vegetated cliffs directly below the community.

“For maybe 10 years or so after a fire, fuels and risks are lower. But with hotter and dryer weather fire risk is increasing, especially on these slopes,” said Lorretta Duke, South Zone fire management officer of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, a portion of which is located in Skamania County.

Duke also points to rail-grinding operations. “Consider timing of grinding to not do that during high fire danger times,” she said.

“There needs to be conversations with Burlington Northern as to their track-grinding procedures,” Skamania County Commissioner Tom Lennon told Columbia Insight when asked about preventing future fires in the area.

Others are more blunt in their assessment of construction and rebuilding of houses destroyed or damaged in areas of high fire risk.

“It seems crazy to build a new house in this fire-risk zone,” said Harkenrider. “Where is the line where people shouldn’t be allowed to build?”

The post Why Washington’s Tunnel 5 Fire is destined to be repeated first appeared on Columbia Insight.

The post Why Washington’s Tunnel 5 Fire is destined to be repeated appeared first on Columbia Insight.

Why Washington’s Tunnel 5 Fire is destined to be repeated was first posted on August 3, 2023 at 9:19 am.
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Until recently, however, the cause of the fire remained a mystery. In early June, the Boulder County Sheriff’s office released the results of its investigation into the fire’s origin, identifying two sparks: a seemingly dormant ember blown from an outdoor firepit in Marshall, and a downed Xcel Energy power line a few hundred feet south. The findings resolved one major question about the Marshall Fire, though other challenges, from building codes to home insurance disputes, still smolder for the residents.

High Country News spoke with Ashley Stolzmann, the former mayor of Louisville and a current Boulder County commissioner, to understand the significance of the investigation, how to prepare for the next wildfire, and the details behind a lawsuit seeking damages from Xcel Energy for its role in starting the inferno.  

Stolzmann has amassed an unusual amount of experience when it comes to responding to climate disasters. Her first month as a Louisville city council member coincided with the 2013 Front Range flood, the largest rain event on record in Colorado, which destroyed 262 homes in Boulder County. That earned her an appointment to the Mile High Flood District by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, D, in 2020. A year later, the Marshall Fire forced then-Mayor Stolzmann and her husband to evacuate alongside 40,000 other area residents as she juggled the city’s disaster response. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

High Country News: You were mayor of Louisville during the blaze in 2021 and still live there today. As the fire bore down on the city, residents were sending you texts for information you didn’t have. At the same time, you had to lead the city’s emergency response while making your own decisions about what to save from your home as you evacuated. Could you walk me through what happened that day?

Ashley Stolzmann: I live in Louisville, very close to where the fire was extinguished. In my family, we sort of divided up the tasks that day. I have a great partner and he took care of evacuating our house and worrying about our personal life. That allowed me to go over to emergency operations and just focus on the city stuff. So, my partner really helped me to split my personal life apart from what I was working on for the community. And It was really hard, because neighbors would text me or call me and ask, “Is our neighborhood still here? Is our house OK?” And I didn’t know. It was important that I followed all the evacuation orders that we set because I couldn’t break the rules myself. I actually found out from a neighbor that did break the evacuation rules that our house was still standing. 

HCN: What has the Marshall Fire come to mean for Louisville and Boulder County? 

AS: For the most part, it really has brought people together and shown them the goodness in others: how people really want to help, and continue to want to help. Early in the recovery, some of the community had gas and power and shared their homes with those that didn’t. People were offering showers and heated beds and food. The food sharing has gone on for the whole year and a half, where folks cook dinners for one another and feed each other. Just a lot of caring for one another and resilience. But the fire has also set others back and forced some hard choices. I’ve heard from residents who had to use their children’s college savings account to rebuild their house. There are people that had to decide they’re not rebuilding, just because of their financial situation and their retirement plans. And there are some who didn’t want to rebuild just from the pain of the whole thing. Overall, people have really shown how supportive and resilient they are, what a strong community this is.

HCN: Based on what we know from climate science, this likely won’t be the last Front Range fire catapulted by extreme winds and drought conditions. What have the county and state done to prepare for the next one? 

AS: We’re really ramping up the amount of mitigation we’re doing in the forest and in the grasslands. The community was generous and passed the new tax for fire mitigation that has allowed us to unlock more federal grants because, for any FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) grants, you must have local money to match it. We have done more controlled burns this year, we’ve mitigated more acres of forest land, and we’re grazing areas heavily with livestock to cut down on fuel. But we’re trying to do that with more regenerative practices that keep the water and moisture in the soil. Then came this rainy spring, and we know that means even more fire fuel to manage later down the line. We’ve also made changes to our evacuation system and made changes to the way we dispatch firefighters so that we can try to put out fires faster. 

The biggest piece of it that I’m excited about is we’re working on a public communications plan. It’s a Smokey the Bear-style campaign with the theme of, ‘How can you prepare for forest fires and grassland fires?’ Because there’s another fire coming. It teaches residents about the importance of fire screens on roof vents to keep embers from getting sucked in and of having a fire-resistant perimeter surrounding the home. The campaign also talks about having photos of your house taken, so your insurance company has documentation of what you had in your house; it also underscores the importance of having insurance that’s up to date and a plan for evacuation. 

“I’ve heard from residents who had to use their children’s college savings account to rebuild their house” 

HCN: Insurance companies have fought to prevent payouts to those who lost their homes, adding to the trauma of the fire. What steps are being taken to make sure future wildfire victims are fairly compensated after a loss?

AS: We got two bills passed at the state level this year that I’m proud of. One is about the insurance payout and what people get in a declared disaster and complete loss to make it so that people don’t have to go through the retraumatization of itemizing everything they lost. Judy Amabile, our state representative, brought a bill to correct that part of the insurance process. It allows the Division of Insurance to look at the payout levels on an ongoing basis. The way insurance works is they have software that assesses what the company thinks it will cost to rebuild. 

And then the other bill we passed is called the FAIR Act. The state can now step in with public insurance if a consumer is told by the companies, “No, we will not insure your home.” So, there’s a way for every person in the state to get insurance, because we were starting to see people being denied coverage.

HCN: There’s an ongoing lawsuit against the utility giant Xcel Energy seeking damages since it was one of the company’s downed powerlines that initiated the Marshall Fire. The county investigation confirmed that the dangling wire was one of the fire’s two ignition points but found no grounds for criminal charges against the company. What do you think about the lawsuit and the decision not to pursue charges against Xcel? 

AS: The sheriff’s office did the investigation and then the district attorney looked to see if there could be charges brought. So much detailed effort was put in to really consider if there was a case for a criminal charge, and the district attorney found there was not. But that doesn’t mean that people cannot pursue civil lawsuits for accountability.

HCN: The fire torched over a thousand homes in Boulder County. How far has the recovery come in the year and a half since? 

AS: For our community members, it’s not going nearly fast enough. We want everybody back home. But from a disaster standpoint, when you look at other disasters like ours, we are really doing great as a community getting homes rebuilt. All of the debris is removed, and more than half of the people who lost their homes are well into the process of rebuilding, which is incredible. And then the best news I can deliver is that the rebuilding of a large condo unit that burned down, broke ground last weekend. That was one that was keeping me up at night. 

Samuel Shaw is an editorial intern for High Country News based in the Colorado Front Range. Email him at samuel.shaw@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy. Follow Samuel on Instagram @youngandforgettable. 

This story was originally published by the Rural Monitor.

As a librarian in Peck, Idaho — a self-described “one-woman show” in a community of just under 200 people — Doreen Schmidt’s workdays begin with an unusual routine.

First, Schmidt checks the air quality monitor installed on the side of the library building. Next, she chooses a flag that best matches the results: green for healthy, red for unhealthy, or yellow for in-between.

And at 10 a.m. every Tuesday and Thursday, when the Peck Community Library opens its doors, Schmidt hangs the flag outside, announcing the air quality of the day to students in the one-room schoolhouse across the street, post office-goers, and other community members passing by.

This routine is one of several initiatives that the Peck library and eight others in rural northern Idaho have adopted in partnership with the Nez Perce Tribe’s Air Quality Program in an effort to raise awareness of the health risks posed by wildfire smoke and steps that local residents can take to protect themselves against it.

“We librarians became informed [about air quality] so that we can inform our communities,” said Schmidt, who serves as branch manager of the Peck Community Library. “The partnerships and the connections we make through the libraries are really important, because the library is the hub of our community.”

Across the western U.S., wildfire smoke is increasingly recognized as an urgent public health issue for urban and rural dwellers alike. But rural communities face some unique challenges when it comes to collecting and spreading information about wildfire smoke and its health impacts — and, in response, uniquely rural solutions are emerging.

“Smoke has become more and more prevalent as a topic of concern in rural communities, but there’s still a lag” when it comes to making sure rural residents know how best to protect themselves against smoke exposure, said Savannah D’Evelyn, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. “We need to be thinking about smoke just as much as we’re thinking about fire.”

Rural Risks

Unhealthy air quality can affect any person who is exposed: immediate impacts of breathing in smoke may include coughing, difficulty breathing, headaches, irritated sinuses, and a fast heartbeat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But some populations are especially at risk, including the elderly, children, pregnant women, and people with conditions including asthma, heart disease, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), a rising cause of death in rural America. Wildfire smoke can also negatively impact mental health in rural communities, a study from University of Washington researchers found, with rural study participants reporting increased anxiety, depression, isolation, and a lack of motivation during smoke episodes.

As public health researchers learn more about the physical and mental health impacts of wildfire smoke, including in rural communities, a clearer picture of who is most at risk has started to develop, according to Elizabeth Walker, PhD, an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and one of the authors of the mental health study. People who tend to be particularly vulnerable during smoke episodes include lower-income residents, those with outdoor occupations, and people experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness, said Walker, who is also the founder of Clean Air Methow, a nonprofit program that provides information and resources to help residents of Washington’s rural Okanogan County protect themselves against unhealthy air quality.

For these particularly at-risk groups, avoiding smoke exposure altogether is often not an option. Rural-based industries such as agriculture, forestry, and outdoor recreation often revolve around outdoor work, exposing employees to unhealthy air throughout the workday. And in small communities that lack indoor public gathering spaces with clean air, residents without housing — or who don’t have sufficient air filtration systems in their homes — may have nowhere to go to escape the smoke; in places that do have community spaces with clean air, it may not be practical or affordable for some residents to travel long distances from their homes to use them.

In some rural communities where wood-burning stoves are commonly used during colder months, smoke is inescapable even in winter: residents may experience exposure year-round, compounding the health impacts without seasonal relief.

“If people are getting a much higher exposure, either due to outdoor work or to their housing conditions, those folks really need to be targeted for providing whatever interventions we can,” Walker said.

Monitoring the Problem

For many rural communities, protecting against wildfire smoke exposure is made significantly more difficult by the fact that there is no way of knowing exactly how much smoke is in the air on any given day.

Information about air quality is often limited in rural areas, with air quality monitors more densely concentrated around larger population centers. The result is what D’Evelyn refers to as “monitoring deserts”: places where smoke is palpable in the air but where a lack or shortage of monitors leaves exact air quality levels unknown, making it more difficult for communities to gauge what sort of health protection measures are needed.

“We [air quality researchers] tend to focus on areas that are densely populated, because you already have air quality issues there from things like traffic and industry,” said Danilo Dragoni, PhD, Bureau Chief of the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection’s (NDEP) Air Quality Planning Bureau. “In rural communities where only indirect methods of measuring air quality are available, the understanding is that air quality is relatively good. But when you have wildfires and smoke, you go from a decent air quality to a very bad air quality in the range of a few days.”

In Nevada, smoke from a series of wildfires near the California-Nevada border in recent years served as a wake-up call of sorts for state officials, Dragoni said. During these episodes, the bureau received phone calls from emergency managers and school district officials in rural northern Nevada requesting air quality information, as information found online “didn’t really match what they were experiencing on the ground.”

“We realized that the coverage in terms of air quality monitoring was not enough,” Dragoni said. “Wildfire smoke is very unpredictable and can change very rapidly. So they started calling us to say, ‘Hey, can you give us more information?’ And we realized that we couldn’t really do it.”

To start to fill these gaps, NDEP purchased dozens of PurpleAir sensors — air quality sensors that are relatively inexpensive and easily installed, but less accurate than regulatory-grade monitors — to loan to rural communities across the state at no cost. The department has also partnered with the Desert Research Institute (DRI) — the nonprofit research arm of Nevada’s state higher education system — on a grant-funded project to improve and expand wildfire smoke air quality monitoring infrastructure and public information resources for rural communities statewide. The program, which began in 2021 and is ongoing, included the installation of roughly 60 smart technology air quality sensors as well as additional communication resources to identify gaps in public knowledge around the health risks of wildfire smoke in rural communities and develop new educational materials.

“Risk communication messaging around wildfire smoke is directly informed by air quality data,” said Kristin VanderMolen, PhD, an assistant research professor of atmospheric sciences at DRI. “And so for these counties where there isn’t quality data, messaging becomes difficult because, you know, what do you say?”

In Pershing County, Nevada — a county of roughly 6,500 people spanning more than 6,000 square miles — a lack of reliable air quality monitoring made measuring air quality difficult during wildfire season.

“Other than looking outside and seeing that your visibility was reduced, there was no quantitative method for determining how bad the smoke was,” said Sean Burke, Director of Emergency Management for Pershing County.

But the health impacts were evident, especially during the smokiest part of the season, Burke said: As an EMS worker, he saw a noticeable increase in asthma and COPD exacerbations when the smoke was thick.

Participating in the DRI-NDEP project has provided Pershing County with new tools to measure smoke particles in the air. Making sure that local residents understand the extent of the health risks involved — and how they can best protect themselves — can still be challenging, though, Burke said.

“I talked to one old fellow who said, ‘If I want to know how the smoke is, I’ll look out my window,’” Burke recalled. “I think, generally speaking, people get it: There’s smoke, and it’s not great. But I don’t think they understand necessarily just exactly how bad it can be, particularly if you’re in one of those sensitive health categories.”

‘Harnessing Toughness’

Smoke exposure levels tend to be higher in rural communities, according to D’Evelyn, in part because fires are often closer to home. The nearer and bigger the fire, the worse the smoke episode likely will be — but the more likely it is that air quality will be overshadowed by concerns about the fire itself.

“Fire is always the top concern because in rural communities, a fire can come right through and burn down your home,” D’Evelyn said. “And so this concept of being concerned about smoke exposure has been secondary on people’s minds — they’re much more worried about fire, which makes sense.”

A “long-term historical familiarity and cultural tolerance for smoke” in many rural communities in the West may also contribute to the perception that smoke isn’t an urgent public health issue, Walker said.

“When something is familiar to you, you tend to underestimate the risk that it poses,” she said. “The classic example is that people routinely think that being in a car is safer than being in an airplane. Smoke is woven into our experiences here, so it’s often not seen as something that can cause severe health risks.”

A public outreach campaign by Clean Air Methow over the past year has focused on changing these perceptions, using messaging that leans into what were identified through community focus groups and surveys as the “top three values” of the region: determination, grit, and family.

“Toughness is a strength to harness in rural communities, and we’ve tried to design the campaign around the idea that toughness means protecting and caring for other people and promoting awareness of who the most vulnerable groups are,” Walker said. “Maybe someone in your family or your neighbor falls into one of those vulnerable categories, even if you don’t, and they might need some help taking steps to protect their well-being and health.”

Within the Nevada communities participating in the DRI-NDEP project, “people are generally familiar with wildfire smoke risk exposure, and they’re generally familiar with who tends to be more vulnerable or at risk,” VanderMolen said. “But when it comes to mitigation strategies, there is a little bit of fine-tuning to be done.”

In rural northern Idaho, finding — and communicating — the most effective mitigation strategies has meant taking into consideration the unique needs of the region.

“Five or ten years ago, the messaging was just, ‘Stay indoors,’” said Mary Fauci, an Environmental Specialist with the Nez Perce Air Quality Program. “But many people up here don’t have air conditioning and have to keep the windows open to cool their house down at night, which brings in wildfire smoke. So the general acknowledgement was that we need to either change the messaging or provide means of help to get people to change so that they can be ready and resilient.”

Trusted Sources

In rural environments, information about smoke and its health impacts may be most effectively disseminated by sources close to home, research has found.

In a series of interviews and focus group discussions with residents of rural and tribal communities in north central Washington, D’Evelyn and other University of Washington researchers found that participants generally trusted local sources of information — such as tribal or local governments, or informal community communication networks — more than non-local sources, such as the state or federal government agencies. The research was conducted and published in collaboration with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Okanogan River Airshed Partnership.

Interviewees also “overwhelmingly” described local and community channels — such as community information boards, local news, friends and family, and social media — as their main sources of information on air quality and smoke risk, according to the report.

Within any given community, “networks of communication are super varied,” D’Evelyn said. “There will be Facebook groups that 30% of the community is incredibly active in, and then there’s another percentage of the community that doesn’t even have internet access at their home and doesn’t want to. Making sure that you’re tapping all of the different communication networks that are necessary is really important.”

In Pershing County, a lack of real-time media coverage has made it difficult to keep community members informed about air quality and health risks in a timely way, Burke said. With the nearest television station in Reno, roughly 100 miles away, the local newspaper — which publishes once a week — is the primary source of local news.

“If you’re in a larger metropolitan area, you would expect to see something on the local news about hazardous levels of smoke, but we kind of fall outside of the major reporting area,” Burke said. “Our single largest challenge is getting the word out effectively.”

To do this, Pershing County and other rural communities have had to find alternative methods for communicating risk to the public. In Pershing County, those methods include posting information in public places — such as senior centers, community centers, and hospitals — and on social media, though spotty or nonexistent internet access in some rural areas can make the latter more difficult. In another Nevada county participating in the DRI-NDEP project, traveling U.S. Forest Service field technicians plan to deliver pamphlets with smoke information to particularly remote communities without reliable cell phone service or internet access.

To reach a diverse range of Okanogan County residents, Clean Air Methow has taken a diverse approach to its public messaging that includes billboards, print materials, radio spots, bar coasters, and social media posts. As part of a recent outreach campaign funded by the Washington State Department of Ecology, the organization and regional partners distributed more than 3,000 copies of a Smoke Ready Checklist, which lists instructions and best practices for minimizing smoke exposure — including setting up a do-it-yourself air cleaning system at home, making a plan for vulnerable household members, gathering N95 masks, and ideas for staying “mentally strong and engaged” throughout wildfire season — in both English and Spanish.

With funding from an Environmental Protection Agency grant, Clean Air Methow also made box fan air filters available for free to community members, with more than a dozen pop-up displays with information about how to get one set up at health clinics and social service organizations throughout the county.

Partnerships with “trusted partners” in the community, such as healthcare and social service providers and fire safety entities, have been key to Clean Air Methow’s success in distributing information about smoke exposure and protection strategies, according to Walker.

“Everything we have ever accomplished has only been on the basis of those strong partner networks and relationships,” she said.

A Community Effort

In northern Idaho, the Nez Perce Air Quality Program has found a different kind of trusted partner in the region’s community libraries.

The program began by approaching a handful of libraries in 2012, to ask whether one of the program’s interns could host presentations on air quality safety as part of the libraries’ summer reading programs. From there, the relationships grew, with more libraries signing on to host summer reading presentations on air quality and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects.

“Libraries have a lot more than books, and I think communities and the public are starting to realize that there’s other things they can do,” said Johna Boulafentis, an Environmental Specialist with the Nez Perce ERWM Air Quality Program. “Following through, showing up, and having our intern be there started to really build that trust.”

The Nez Perce Tribe has had a robust air monitoring system in place on its reservation since the early 2000s. But some of the area’s smallest communities, including Peck, were without their own air monitors — leaving mini monitoring deserts in a landscape where air quality can change abruptly from town to town.

When the Air Quality Program approached Schmidt in 2021 to ask whether the Peck Community Library would be interested in installing a PurpleAir Monitor and putting out a flag each day to help inform community members about air quality, Schmidt says she was “thrilled.”

Students at Peck Elementary School across the street — a one-room schoolhouse with 34 students ranging from kindergarten through sixth grade — have also embraced the program enthusiastically, using the flag to determine whether it’s safe to play outside for recess during fire season. At noon, when the students come over to the library for programming, they check on the PurpleAir sensor and help Schmidt to update the flag if needed. And “at the end of the day, after school, they’ll run across the street to see if they can check on it again,” Schmidt said with a laugh.

The Nez Perce Air Quality Program has expanded its partnership with participating libraries to include other community outreach efforts in addition to the flag program, such as hosting “Build Your Own Sensor” workshops for local junior high school students and demonstrations for the public on how to build an air filter out of a box fan. Box fan air filters are displayed inside the library entrances as well, with librarians available to answer questions about air quality.

Libraries aren’t the only community partners that the Nez Perce Air Quality Program relies on to help spread public awareness. The program has worked with health agencies, school districts, tribal housing entities, and others to share air quality information and teach strategies for minimizing smoke exposure and has distributed educational materials throughout the community in both English and the Nez Perce language.

But the multigenerational scope of community libraries gives them a unique ability to reach people of all ages and walks of life, Schmidt said.

“If you ever want adults to pay attention, you teach the kids,” Schmidt said. “They bring it home and they really want to make sure that their parents or grandparents, or whoever their caregiver is, are understanding what they’re learning.”

While the impact of the program is difficult to measure in numbers one year in, there is anecdotal evidence that adults are paying attention as well. Several older men living in Peck have asked Schmidt to help them install air quality apps on their cell phones after seeing the colorful flags out front, and at least one library visitor reported back that he had made his own box fan air filter after seeing the display.

Perhaps the most notable indicator of the program’s impact, however, showed up on Peck’s Main Street after the flag program began: One man, noticing that the flags were only updated the two days a week that the library was open, made his own flags to display in his front yard on the days the library was closed.

“To see that person using his own saw and equipment and taking all those steps to display a flag in his yard, and then going into a library and seeing that they have their fan filter going, has been really inspiring,” Boulafentis said. “It makes you want to say, ‘Hey, what should we try together next?’”

“For the community to get excited about it and then see other people participating,” Schmidt added, “brings out the good in us all.”

The post Rural Communities Find Unique Solutions to Protect Against Wildfire Smoke Exposure appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

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This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires that turned skies along the East Coast a sickly yellow also brought air quality alerts to much of the Midwest this week. State health departments cautioned people with heart and lung conditions to reduce outdoor exposure.

It’s likely more days of bad air will come — not only are fires burning in the west in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and in the east in Quebec, but new blazes have erupted in Ontario, directly north of Minnesota, according to Minnesota Pollution Control Agency air quality meteorologist David Brown. The next plume could arrive Friday.

“We’re kind of surrounded at this point. Any wind direction is likely going to bring some smoke now,” Brown said.

In mid-May, sustained winds blew wildfire smoke in from the West, then a few slow-moving weather systems brought stagnant air that triggered ozone advisories.

“It’s been a very unique spring,” said Craig Czarnecki, outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s air management program.

Climate experts say that as the planet continues to warm, this kind of spring will become less and less of an anomaly. In the process, air quality will continue to worsen, as will its impact on human health.

The largest fires have historically been concentrated in the West, and though there are examples of damaging fires elsewhere, wildfire scientists assumed the eastern part of the continent was immune from the worst effects, said Erica Smithwick, director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State.

That’s proving untrue.

Higher temperatures, periods of drought and more volatile winds are yielding wildfires that burn faster and stronger than before, Smithwick said. Wildfire season is also getting longer, as rivers in the West dry out sooner and the East sees stronger storms mixed with drought. Some scientists question whether the whole idea of a wildfire season still applies.

“I’ve studied wildfires for decades, and I’m quite alarmed by the changes that we’re seeing to the wildfire systems,” Smithwick said.

The severity of the fires is even affecting how far their smoke can travel. Smithwick said the stronger the blaze, the higher into the atmosphere the smoke can waft, being picked up by winds that travel long distances and ultimately push it into places it wouldn’t normally go.

Air pollution worsens respiratory, heart problems

Fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, is one of the main pollutants released from wildfire smoke, which are so tiny they “penetrate pretty deep into our lungs and get into our bloodstream,” according to Katelyn O’Dell, a researcher at George Washington University.

Hotter summers are also making stagnant air days more frequent, according to an analysis from Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science. During those stagnation events, pollutants like ozone get trapped and make breathing more difficult.

Both fine particles from wildfire smoke and ozone can cause respiratory issues like coughing, difficulty breathing and aggravated asthma. People doing physical activity outdoors, particularly those who already suffer from respiratory problems, will usually find it harder to do.

On top of that, PM2.5 can have more dramatic effects because the particles are small enough to get deep into the lungs and even the bloodstream.

“Particulate matter is one of the most well-studied types of air pollution, and it is incredibly dangerous to the body,” said Dr. Neelu Tummala, a clinical assistant professor of surgery and co-director of the Climate and Health Institute at George Washington University.

While short-term exposure typically results in respiratory concerns, chronic exposure brings worsening impacts like increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke, Tummala said.

For Black, brown and low-income communities, which already bear a higher burden of air pollution, the recent short-term exposures could further elevate their risk.

Both fine particle and ozone exposure can also result in pregnancy complications like preterm births and babies with low birth weights, Tummala said.

And a 2021 study in the journal Pediatrics found that the particles in that smoke are 10 times more harmful to children’s respiratory health than other types of air pollution. Smithwick, who is also a representative of the Science Moms campaign, said kids are vulnerable because they are more active, play outside more and are still growing.

“We’re definitely going to be seeing this play out in our health systems for many years to come,” she said.

Protect yourself from dirty air

Pay attention to air quality. The Air Quality Index, or AQI, measures risk from dirty air on a scale of 0 to 500. The AQI doesn’t measure the amount of a specific pollutant but generally reflects health impact.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow site offers real-time readings of AQI and also shows where fires are burning and where smoke is wafting. Purple Air, a company that makes air sensors, also has a network of AQI sensor readings at map.purpleair.com.

People should start paying attention at the orange category of AQI — readings between 101 and 150. That’s when sensitive groups like children, the elderly and those with breathing or heart conditions can encounter problems, said Brown.

He added that relatively healthy people might start to feel headaches or chest tightness at the higher end of orange readings.

In the red category from 151 to 200 AQI, all people, regardless of health, may start to feel effects; the purple category from 201 to 300 is considered very unhealthy; and maroon readings of 301 or higher are hazardous.

Avoid time outdoors when the air is bad. Jesse Berman, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, said it’s safest to stay inside with windows closed and air conditioning on. In a car, run the air conditioner set to re-circulate in the interior of the vehicle, he said.

Put those N95 masks back on. For those who have to be outside for work or commuting, try to relocate tasks or reschedule them, reduce strenuous activity, take breaks in a place free of smoke, and wear a well-fitting mask designed to filter out small particles, like an N95.

The Centers for Disease Control warns, however, that N95 masks are not made to fit children and will not work effectively to protect them from smoke.

Filter your indoor air. In the home, air purifiers with high-quality HEPA filters can help remove pollution that sneaks inside, Berman said.

It may also be worth switching out the filter on a home HVAC system. Airflow filters with a higher MERV rating, an industry measurement of how effective the screen is in capturing small particles, can also help. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends MERV 13 or higher.

Berman warned, though, that tighter filters can clog more quickly and may need to be changed more often. For a cheaper option, O’Dell recommended creating one at home with some filters taped to the four edges of a box fan — a do-it-yourself method known as a Corsi-Rosenthal box.

Wildfire smoke is new hazard in upper Midwest is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Here in the Western U.S., smoke season has become a summer ritual. It’s never enjoyable and never routine, but far too common to brush off: Days too choked with smoke to go outdoors, weeks of scratchy throats and headaches, constant low-level anxiety about fire and health impacts.

But so far the heavy smoke has mostly clung to the Western half of the country.

So it’s strange to see it take hold in New York City: That familiar smoky orange haze hanging over skyscrapers, enveloping the Statue of Liberty, smogging up the streets. Sorry to say this, Northeasterners, but welcome to our reality. Our sympathies. It’s stressful and suffocating and disorienting. We get it.

But for better or for worse, though, we’ve developed some coping strategies that some might find useful. So from your friends out West, here are some tips on surviving smoke season:

The first time Oakland was fully socked in with smoke a few years ago — the sun didn’t come out for a day or two, which was really eerie and frightening — I was shocked that some people just tried to keep on with their workdays. It helped me a lot to pull back and take time for what was really going on: grief. THIS IS NOT NORMAL, and trying to go on with my regular day made it feel even worse. I ended up strapping on an N-95 mask and going for a really short walk to take in how totally scary and weird it was in my neighborhood. That was a physical health risk, to be sure, but it helped my mental health to fully process what was going on. And I ran into other neighbors who were walking their dogs or doing the same thing I was. Connecting over the scariness of it all helped, too.

—Sarah Trent, editorial intern

“All is changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.”

If you know someone with COPD, asthma or similar diseases — in my case, a vulnerable family member — try to find ways to help them so they don’t have to leave their house. Fetch groceries, pet food, mail, etc., if you can, and make sure that they have necessary prescriptions, especially inhalers, and that their cooling system is working as well as possible — which is not easy for poor folks living in challenging conditions, I know. Like Sarah, I sometimes masked up (thank you, Dr. Fauci!) to go for walks outside, because walking is necessary to me, and besides, if I stayed inside too long, the climate grief and depression overwhelmed me — but I certainly avoided any outdoor activities that might require heavy breathing. You never really get used to it — or even accept that it’s actually happening to a place you love so dearly. It was strange, but at times the light was eerily magical; sometimes I thought of Yeats: “All is changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.”

 —Diane Sylvain, copy editor

A home air filter is about the same size as a box fan. You can duct-tape one to the back/intake side of the fan and turn the fan on. It’s an inexpensive way to filter particles out of the air indoors.

— Toastie Oaster, staff writer

The light is different, the air can feel strange, time passes differently. You’re not going crazy; it is really disorienting. I found it helpful to remind myself this was just going to be weird and find ways to ground myself. For example, cold showers help with the vaguely sooty, sweaty feeling. Also: That headache? Yes, it probably IS because of smoke.

Also: Use your COVID toolkit. Maybe you got yourself an air purifier or rigged up a makeshift one. Put that back in action! Did you get a humidifier to help with COVID symptoms? That may help ease your throat scratchiness. If you have to go outside, your N95 mask will help protect you, although it isn’t going to block everything.

 —Kate Schimel, news and investigations editor

“Fire season” is a household phrase here, as depressing as that is. But I noticed that like the grinding doldrums of the pandemic, we slowly found ways to process the nightmare through humor and memes — all small acts of defiance against something larger than ourselves and largely out of our control. So share that selfie with the hellish sunset! Become Vin Diesel in The Chronicles of Riddick! For once, we all get to be in on the same pitch-black joke. And If you’re a nerd like me, you might also find that mapping the inferno provides a small measure of calm: it’s nice to know thy enemy, so to speak. Here’s a NASA tool where you can put a face to that flaming monster with satellite imagery. 

—Samuel Shaw, editorial intern

If you have young kids, find out where the indoor tumbling classes are to keep them occupied. And I think it helps to invest in a good map app that can show you smoke paths, like OpenSummit.

 —Michael Schrantz, marketing communications manager

I boil rosemary. Somebody told me it purifies the air by binding to smoke particles. I have no idea if this is actually true, but the added humidity and pleasant smell make me feel better when my asthma acts up during smoke events.

There’s value in rituals of healing, something as simple as sipping tea or massaging oil onto a strained muscle. Even if it turns out whatever the tea was made of, or whatever was infused in the oil, doesn’t have any extra health benefit, the act of noticing an ill and paying attention to it does. These things allow me to pause, admit there is a problem, and feel for a moment that I have some agency over a solution.

 —Luna Anna Archey, associate visuals editor

When it looks, feels and smells like the world is ending, don’t expect you’ll be at peak physical and mental performance.

Wildfire smoke will wreck more than your lungs. Ash can also damage vehicles and other items outdoors if you try to wash it off with water: The particulate wood ash reacts to form a weak lye solution that can damage your paint. Keep vehicles indoors, or cover them if you can. If not, try to brush the ash off rather than rinsing it. In a pinch, putting a wet bandanna over your nose and mouth can help with the worst effects of smoke.

Also, it’s normal for orange skies and the eerie, blood-red sun to affect your mood and mental health. Symptoms of smoke exposure, like shortness of breath and a vague, general feeling of unwellness, mirror and can exacerbate anxiety symptoms. When it looks, feels and smells like the world is ending, don’t expect you’ll be at peak physical and mental performance.

 —Rachel Alexander, managing editor at Salem Reporter

Being surrounded by wildfire smoke soup often makes me feel powerless and hopeless. It’s hard to feel safe when systemic forces and global problems — climate change, forest management — seep across borders and make your lungs, throat, eyes and head hurt. But I’d encourage people experiencing wildfire smoke for the first time to protect themselves, and then push for change that lasts after the smoke dissipates and protects the most vulnerable. Disasters can be pivotal moments, and action is an antidote to despair. Demand that wildfire fighters, who are on the frontlines of these blazes, receive adequate compensation and health care. Demand that farmworkers, who harvest food when the rest of us hole up inside, receive adequate protections from smoke (and heat!). Demand that people living without shelter have access to clean indoor air. Don’t just buy an air filter and go back to normal.

—Kylie Mohr, editorial fellow

Being an avid walker and hiker is difficult during wildfire smoke events. Some days it’s simply not feasible or advisable to exercise out of doors (purple and red days!). But other days, especially for those who don’t have health issues that make them particularly vulnerable to marginal air quality, it can be done. I watch the air quality index (AQI) throughout the day and choose my walking/hiking time based on air-quality reports. I also watch different air-monitoring stations throughout my area, and choose my walking/hiking locations based on AQI, which can be variable even locally. Sometimes I will take a walk wearing a N95 mask. I don’t do more strenuous walking or hiking masked, though. On days when it’s better to stay inside, I use a stationary bicycle to get my cardio fix. During the Thomas Fire of 2017-2018 (which burned for over a month), air quality was so bad for such a prolonged time that I and many others in our area who had the ability to do so simply packed up and left home.

—Jennifer Sahn, editor in chief

I grew up in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. The summer after college, I went to Montana for eight weeks of field ecology classes (maybe I was done with college, but college wasn’t quite done with me). On the last day of the program, I woke to the hazy hot air and lurid neon-red sun that now, after more than 15 years of living in the West, I’m very familiar with. That day felt like the Apocalypse or the End Times — something biblical, something entirely beyond my previous understanding of what the world could even be. What I’ve learned since then is that the smoky days will always be hard and scary, but they do pass. One day it will rain, one day I’ll be able to see the distant hills from my back deck, one day the morning sun will be as yellow as the roses blooming in my neighbor’s yard.

—Emily Benson, senior editor-north

We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

Meteorologists expect smoke from Canadian wildfires to remain over central Virginia until this weekend.

That means air quality will remain poor in Charlottesville and surrounding counties until around Saturday, and people should try and avoid exerting themselves outside, especially those with heart and lung issues.

The National Weather Service has issued a “code red air quality alert” for this area beginning Tuesday. That means, the air quality could become so poor that it could be dangerous for even healthy people to be physically active outside.

The air quality was not quite that bad in Albemarle County as of 10 a.m. Wednesday. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality measured the amount of fine particulate matter in the air to be at a moderate level, which is most dangerous to “unusually sensitive individuals” with heart or lung disease or older adults.

“That is currently moderate, but it’s a high moderate,” said Dan Salkovitz, a VDEQ meteorologist.

And that could change at any time, he added. If the amount of fine particulate matter in Albemarle County increases just a bit, more groups of people become at risk for health issues — including children.

The issue is wind direction. Well, and wildfires.

As of Tuesday there were 240 wildfires deemed “out of control” by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Many are directly north of this area in the Québec province, and many have been burning for days.

As those fires burn, the smoke that billows from them contains the fine particle matter that the DEQ measures to determine weather quality.

Right now, there is an area of low atmospheric pressure just over New England, and the wind surrounding that area of low pressure is rotating counterclockwise, said Kevin Rodriguez, the lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in the Baltimore/Washington office. That circulation is perfect for grabbing up smoke and fine particles from those massive wildfires raging in eastern Canada and slinging it south over the mid Atlantic and into Virginia.

“We’re going to be in this pattern for at least the next two or three days,” Rodriguez said. “And then another weather system will come in over the weekend. They might get some showers out of that Friday, but the main thing is it’s going to change the wind direction so it will come from the west. And we’ll finally get some cleaner air that’s not coming from Canada.”

When that happens, the smoke from the fires will be pushed out over the Atlantic Ocean, he added.

In the meantime, folks in central Virginia can keep track of the air quality at this link. The site will take you to a map of Virginia. Click on the box over Charlottesville. That box will show the measured air quality at Albemarle High School, the only station in this region that measures air quality.

The changing weather patterns this weekend will give this area a welcome reprieve from smoke, Salkovitz said. But it’s impossible to know how long it will last. As long as the wildfires continue burning in Canada, Virginia’s air quality will be at the mercy of the winds.

The New York Times has created a map tracking the smoke from Canada’s wildfires.

To learn more about the possible health concerns from breathing smoke, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a fact sheet that includes information about how to keep smoke and fine particles out of your home.

The post Meteorologists expect smoke from Canada to remain over central Virginia until the weekend appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.