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This month air quality in some Santa Barbara and Ventura county communities hit record-high hazardous levels, making it unsafe for anyone to be outside
An aerial view of the Thomas Fire in Ventura County earlier this month.
Photo:
Katie Graves/Zuma Press
Isla Vista, Calif.—For her recent hike around an idyllic seaside lagoon,
Mika Leslie
wore shorts, a cotton T-shirt and a microfiber respirator mask.
A massive cloud of smoke smothered the early afternoon sun, as the largest wildfire in state history raged about 15 miles away.
“The smoke has been so crazy, the moon is red, the sun is red, and everything is in an orange glow because smoke is just covering everything,” said Ms. Leslie, a freshman at the University of California, at Santa Barbara.
California’s costliest wildfire season on record has sent air quality plummeting in highly populated urban areas and pumped massive quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air, experts say. That has presented a challenge for public-health officials and regulators who seek to limit air pollution in California—where even using fireplaces, wood stoves and outdoor fire pits is illegal on certain “spare the air” days.
In Southern California, the Thomas Fire has been burning through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties for three weeks. It’s the largest wildfire in California’s history.
Just two months earlier, blazes ripped through Northern California’s wine country. During those October wildfires, air quality in San Francisco was comparable to that in Beijing, officials said. This month, air quality in some Santa Barbara and Ventura county communities hit record-high hazardous levels, making it unsafe for anyone to be outside.
Fresh Air?
California has worked to improve air quality, but major fires are impeding those efforts.
California Emission Reduction
Santa Barbara Air Quality
PM2.5, or particulate matter, in the air in Santa Barbara. At 100, it's considered dangerous for sensitive groups to be outside.
Change in California’s total greenhouse-gas emissions since 2000.
Thomas Fire Starts
150
µg/m³ of PM2.5
.
%
5.0
.
125
2.5
Severe
100
0
75
-2.5
Moderate
50
-5.0
25
-7.5
0
’08
’10
’12
’06
’14
’04
2002
Nov. 27
Dec. 4
Dec. 11
Santa Barbara Air Quality
PM2.5, or particulate matter, in the air in Santa Barbara. At 100, it's considered dangerous for sensitive groups to be outside.
Thomas Fire Starts
.
µg/m³ of PM2.5
150
125
Severe
100
75
Moderate
50
25
0
Dec. 4
Nov. 27
Dec. 11
California Emission Reduction
Change in California’s total greenhouse-gas emissions since 2000.
5.0
.
%
2.5
0
-2.5
-5.0
-7.5
’10
’08
’12
’04
’06
2002
’14
Santa Barbara Air Quality
California Emission Reduction
PM2.5, or particulate matter, in the air in Santa Barbara. At 100, it's considered dangerous for sensitive groups to be outside.
Change in California’s total greenhouse-gas emissions since 2000.
Thomas Fire Starts
%
5.0
150
.
µg/m³ of PM2.5
.
125
2.5
Severe
100
0
75
-2.5
Moderate
50
-5.0
25
-7.5
0
’04
’06
’08
’10
2002
’12
’14
Dec. 11
Nov. 27
Dec. 4
Santa Barbara Air Quality
PM2.5, or particulate matter, in the air in Santa Barbara. At 100, it's considered dangerous for sensitive groups to be outside.
Thomas Fire Starts
.
µg/m³ of PM2.5
150
125
Severe
100
75
Moderate
50
25
0
Dec. 4
Dec. 11
Nov. 27
California Emission Reduction
Change in California’s total greenhouse-gas emissions since 2000.
.
5.0
%
2.5
0
-2.5
-5.0
-7.5
’10
’08
’12
’06
’04
2002
’14
Sources: AirNow.gov, California Air Resources Board
The public health and environmental threats are a challenge for a state that considers itself a global leader on climate change and has strict air-quality management policies.
The fires “are putting a lot of carbon pollution into the environment, in the air, and that will offset a lot of hard-won reductions that we are making in California,”
Gov. Jerry Brown
said recently while visiting Ventura County. “It’s a big problem.”
As wildfires burn throughout Southern California, insurance companies are sending in private firefighters to protect expensive homes. WSJ rides along with a crew in Ventura working to protect pricey mansions. Photo: Associated Press
Under Mr. Brown, California has laid out the aggressive goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions 40% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. Earlier this year, the state also approved legislation that reduces air toxics in communities disproportionately hit by pollution.
Earlier this month, the California Air Resources Board, which oversees the state’s air quality and climate-change programs, approved its annual plan to reduce emissions in the state, adding measures to reduce emission and pollution from forests and natural lands.
Particulate matter, carbon, ozone, volatile organic compounds, trace gases, air toxics and mercury can all threaten the public during wildfires, according to a 2016 presentation by the Environmental Protection Agency, which described larger and more frequent wildfires as a global public-health problem.
The presentation said nearly a third of the U.S. population was at risk of wildfire toxins. Health problems can include heart failure, lung disease, respiratory infections, asthma, bronchitis, hypertension and other issues.
Public-health officials have warned people in some Santa Barbara and Ventura county communities to stay inside on some days during the recent blazes.
Last Thursday, Santa Barbara County declared a public-health emergency due to the air quality.
Anywhere between 20 to 50 people a day have been checking into county clinics and hospitals with symptoms related to the poor air quality since the fires began, said
Dr. Charity Dean,
public-health officer for Santa Barbara County.
Patients have been prescribed inhalers, pills and other medications to deal with the effects of the smoke. Meanwhile, people walking around with particle-filtering respirator masks have also become a common sight, with the county having distributed more than 300,000 such masks for free.
Ms. Leslie, the UCSB freshman, said she got her respirator mask from fellow ultimate Frisbee teammates after practice was canceled due to the record-poor air quality.
Her roommate came down with a suspected case of bronchitis, she said. She has seen ash fall from the sky, covering the seat of her bike when she leaves it parked outside her dorm, she said.
The kinds of massive fires California has seen this season can generate millions of tons of greenhouse-gas emissions, said
Dave Clegern,
a spokesman for the air resources board.
Unlike emissions from industry, however, there is no real-time monitoring of those emissions. The state uses data from the U.S. Forest Service to estimate wildfire emissions and includes it every year in its greenhouse-gas inventory, but California doesn’t count these emissions against its reduction targets.
The state estimates that between 2001 and 2010 wildfires generated about 120 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions. By comparison, that’s a little more than half of what the transportation sector in the state emitted in 2015, according to data from the air resources board.
John J. Battles,
a professor of forest ecology at the University of California, at Berkeley, believes the recent, massive blazes are adding even more emissions than estimated during those years.
“These fires raise serious questions, they don’t just remove live vegetation, they burn debris on the ground and they can actually remove some soil carbon,” said Dr. Battles. “If you are going to be honest about greenhouse-gas emissions, you have to account for these things.”
Tracking the public health and climate impact of wildfires “is a new science” that could result in new regulations and policies for wildlife management, said Char Miller, an environmental professor at Pomona College in Claremont.
California’s wildfire epidemic is in some ways analogous to Los Angeles’ experience with smog in the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Miller said, when Angelenos breathed some of the worst air in the world, and scientists in the state began seriously studying air quality.
The California smog experience resulted in new technologies for industry and automobiles and a political culture enacting stringent environmental and climate policies.
The studies have taken on heightened importance as severe drought and climate change make fire seasons longer and more intense across the West.
Mr. Brown said he plans to make studying the effects of wildfires on climate change a priority given how the fires have intensified.
This month air quality in some Santa Barbara and Ventura county communities hit record-high hazardous levels, making it unsafe for anyone to be outside