Smoke takes your breath away

By
Dr. Luis Contreras
-
1027

The COVID-19 is deadly for people with chronic respiratory problems

When we are healthy, we breathe all the time and we hardly notice it. But people with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis, emphysema, pneumonia, and other lung disorders, struggle with every breath.

Now that the virus is in our communities, individuals at high risk must act to protect themselves. In the March 12, New York Times report, Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, says “people should understand they need to take control of their own life.” He adds, “You can’t assume people are not capable of infecting you. In many cases, they won’t even know they’re infected.” Those who are older or who have chronic health conditions “have to assume the rest of the world is a coronavirus soup,” he added.

Control what you can

Smoke from burning wood spreads particulates and highly toxic gases like benzene and formaldehyde. According to the EPA, particulate matter (PM) less than 10 micrometers in diameter pose the greatest problems, because they can get deep into your lungs, and some may even get into your bloodstream.

The smaller the particles, the higher the risk. Scientific studies have linked particle pollution exposure to premature death in people with heart or lung disease, heart attacks, irregular heartbeat, aggravated asthma, decreased lung function, and difficulty breathing.

There are many sources of smoke, your neighbor burning branches and dry leaves, prescribed burns, and large forest wildfires.

Forestry myths

Foresters use medical terms to seem credible, doing the same thing over and over does not make it right. They also use words like fuel to suggest the risk of fires. Their “fuel” is full of life, an intrinsic part of the forest.

Global warming has created extreme droughts, heat waves, and other extreme weather resulting in massive wildfires. Climate deniers are increasing logging and prescribed fires.

The US Forest Service manages the national forests used for timber, recreation, grazing, wildlife, fish, and more. The misconception that forests are a public resource comes from unstated stories of white supremacy, the conquest of the New World, and conservative religions.

Ecologists view the forests as sacred natural life systems providing clean air and water, shelter, storm protection, and soil creation. Think of forests as large families with many caring relatives from grandpa and grandma to babies that bring love and magic. There are many wise pets caring and loving, teaching core concepts of courage, loyalty, and resiliency. No one is for sale. You can’t extinguish one branch of the family pretending its renewable.

Timber sales are part of forest restoration projects. Taxpayers subsidize the logging roads for timber sold at low prices to selected buyers. Case in point: The USFS lost $17.7 million on timber sales in the Alaska Tongass National Rainforest in 2018.

On March 6 and 7, 2020 heavy smoke was over Eureka Springs West. A prescribed fire at Roaring River and three other burns by the Arkansas Forestry were the sources of the smoke.

Protect yourself

Pay attention to local air quality reports and stay alert to any news coverage or health warnings related to smoke. Please download the free apps, EPA AIRNow and Smoke Sense.

County Judge Sam Barr, (870) 423-2967, is in charge of fire bans for Carroll County.

EPA recommends, if you smell smoke, stay indoors, and don’t let your kids or pets play outside. Keep indoor air as clean as possible. Keep your windows and doors closed, and check for air leaks. Your electric utility may offer free energy efficiency audits which include leak repairs. To seal doors and windows in your home, use weather strips, foam tape, caulk, or door snakes. Run your air conditioner and keep your filter clean to prevent smoke inside.

Forestry ecology resources

“Fire and Logging Myths” George Wuerthner

“Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy,” George Wuerthner

Andy Kerr, Public Lands Blog, forestry ecology

Be kind, don’t burn

When the fire ban is on, don’t burn. When the fire ban is off, be kind to your neighbors and please don’t burn.

Dr. Luis Contreras

12 COMMENTS

  1. After years of smoking I was diagnosed of Bronchitis at 46 and COPD at 51. I had severe shortness of breath, especially after energetic activities. I was on albuteral inhaler and host of medications, nothing really helped. Few years ago, I began to do a lot of research and came across HERBAL HEALTHPOINT (w w w. herbalhealthpoint. c o m) and their COPD HERBAL TREATMENT. After seeing positive reviews I quickly started on the treatment, i experienced significant reduction/decline in major symptoms, including the shortness of breath. Its been over 2 years since treatment, i live symptom free

  2. The UK Guardian reports on smoke and the pandemic

    March 17, 2020

    “Air pollution likely to increase coronavirus death rate, warn experts”

    Lung damage from dirty air may worsen infections, but isolation measures improving air quality

    Dirty air is known to cause lung and heart damage and is responsible for at least 8m early deaths a year. This underlying health damage means respiratory infections, such as coronavirus, may well have a more serious impact on city dwellers and those exposed to toxic fumes, than on others.

    However, strict confinement measures in China, where the coronavirus outbreak began, and in Italy, Europe’s most affected nation, have led to falls in air pollution as fewer vehicles are driven and industrial emissions fall.

    A preliminary calculation by a US expert suggests that tens of thousands of premature deaths from air pollution may have been avoided by the cleaner air in China, far higher than the 3,208 coronavirus deaths.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/17/air-pollution-likely-to-increase-coronavirus-death-rate-warn-experts/

  3. Here is a 2019 article on agricultural smoke best practices in Arkansas.

    A tool kit is available for partners in agriculture and conservation to promote the implementation of Voluntary Smoke Management Guidelines by row crop farmers, and to inform the public about the value of prescribed fire as a management tool, according to the Arkansas Agriculture and Forestry Department.

    Outreach materials including videos and public service announcements are included in the tool kit, available for free here. https://www.agriculture.arkansas.gov/smoke-management-outreach-toolkit

    Voluntary Smoke Management Guidelines are available here: https://www.agriculture.arkansas.gov/Websites/aad/files/Content/6233791/Voluntary_Smoke_Management_Guidelines_for_Row_Crop_Farmers,_2018.pdf

    Burning is unsafe and smoke is deadly – please don’t burn

    https://talkbusiness.net/2019/10/smoke-management-guidelines-released/

  4. Life has changed, we need new rules

    Arkansas coronavirus cases increase to 30 … and will go up

    If you live in the country and have something to burn, please be kind and respect your neighbors. Smoke spreads quickly and far away, making pets and people sick. It may be legal (in the past) but solidarity and caring for others are the overarching rules.

    The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, the Arkansas Forestry Commission and the USFS have an opportunity to take the lead protecting people at high risk.

    Please comment. I will respond quickly to anyone who cares.

    Stay safe, please don’t burn

  5. What the New Yorker got wrong about forests and wildfires

    George Wuerthner
    Nov 12, 2019

    There is much that is accurate about wildfire in the article, such as the problems with the Clean Act and how it limits prescribed burning. But in many ways, the piece serves as propaganda for the Forest Service and its logging agenda.

    I wasn’t really supposed to be setting the forest on fire. That was the job of the United States Forest Service crew whose work I was there to observe. Their task was to carry out a prescribed burn—a carefully controlled, low-intensity fire that clears duff and deadwood, reducing the risk of a catastrophic wildfire.

    But the crew were temporarily occupied by what they called “a slop-over event”: a rogue ember had leaped across a trail that acted as a firebreak at one edge of the burn, sparking a half- acre blaze so hot that standing within a few feet of it made my chest hurt. While the crew used chainsaws and hoes to create a new firebreak, it fell to me to ensure that no part of the line got ahead of the rest. If flames are allowed to break ranks and surge forward, they can whirl around and start running with the wind, burning more intensely and spookily than the prescription allows.

    It took the team more than an hour to fully contain the slop- over. Then they returned to the line with their drip torches. By the end of the day, they had set fire to a hundred and twenty acres of forest. As Lim walked me out of the woods, through the gray-gold twilight of the burn zone, he gave a satisfied sigh. “See, now that’s nice,” he said. “The trees have breathing room.”

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/02/what-the-new-yorker-got-wrong-about-forests-and-wildfires/

  7. Smokey Bear led to raging Southwest wildfires

    Smokey was wrong!

    Scars from thousands of sections show how often fires burned in the Southwest. It was every five or 10 years, mostly — small fires that consumed grass and shrubs and small seedlings but left the big Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir just fine. This was the norm. “Around 1890 or 1900, it stops,” Swetnam says. “We call it the Smokey Bear effect.” Settlers brought livestock that ate the grass, so fires had little fuel. Then when the U.S. Forest Service was formed, its marching orders were “no fires.”

    And it was the experts who approved the all-out ban on fires in the Southwest. They got it wrong. “The irony here is that the argument for setting these areas aside as national forests and parks was, to a large extent, to protect them from fire,” Pyne says. “Instead, over time they became the major habitat for free-burning fire.”

    https://www.npr.org/2012/08/23/159373691/how-the-smokey-bear-effect-led-to-raging-wildfires

  9. Ecological Forest Management: production forestry PF vs ecological forest management EFM

    Proponents of Ecological Forest Management have thrown down the gauntlet. The battle between traditional production forestry (PF) and ecological forest management (EFM) for the profession of forestry and for the acceptance of the public has been joined.

    EFM offers a constructive alternative to landowners, foresters, and the public suffering disillusionment with the agronomic simplification and reductionism of PF.

    Ecological Forest Management exposes the limits—ecological, social, and economic, of PF. “We decided to adopt ecological concepts as the foundation of our forest management text, upon which we would build economic and social considerations,” say the authors. This quite radical in the forestry profession.

    There is a radical evolution happening in forestry, a profession that is part science, part art, and part craft. Production forestry (PF) has held sway since forestry’s beginnings in America before the turn of the twentieth century.

    PF is about maximum sustainable production of wood. Foresters trained in PF were taught that they alone knew best how to manage forests. But over the decades, scientific understanding, public disdain of clearcutting and appreciation of forests, and federal judges have undermined that cherished PF tenet.

    http://www.andykerr.net/kerr-public-lands-blog/tag/forest+management

  11. The Hidden Toll of Wildfires

    Scientific American- Feb 18, 2020

    Although fires contribute up to a third of all particles in the atmosphere, “there are very few studies that examine the specific role of the different components of smoke on disease and the severity of the disease when people are exposed,” said the director of the Environmental Protection Agency in 2018.

    We know chronic exposure to fine particulate matter, which is in all smoke, can lead to heart and lung disease, irregular heartbeats and aggravated asthma, and other issues. It is estimated to cause 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-hidden-toll-of-wildfires/

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