California wildfires could upend years of progress fighting air pollution [San Francisco Chronicle]
Jan. 14 Wildfires in the western United States have exacerbated pollution enough to threaten decades of progress toward sustaining cleaner skies, according to new research underscoring one of the alarming ways that climate change can harm public health.
The findings from researchers at Stanford University and UC San Diego show that wildfire smoke is now responsible for as much as half of the fine-particulate air pollution in western states. That’s about double the level that smoke accounted for in the mid-2000s, according to the paper published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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But as many people in Long Beach as well as in the rest of the West, know, the air is not always fresh these days, as California continues to be ablaze in many places and spewing unhealthy air during the state’s worst fire season in recorded history.
The total fires so far for the state in 2020 is 9,639, burning more than 4 million acres, destroying 10,488 structures and resulting in 33 fatalities according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
While those numbers are statewide, with many occurring in the northern part of California, there have been several relatively local blazes that have darkened the sky, turning the sun into a dim orange ball, and covered porches, patios and cars with layers of soot and ash in Long Beach and causing red flag warnings in Long Beach and elsewhere in Southern California.