Air Quality Issues, Not Fire Damage for Santa Monica during Latest Wildfires
By Rachel Levin, Staff Writer
For the last two months wildfires have been spreading all across California, destroying property and land. The fires have been aggravated by unique climate conditions as well, though the effects are somewhat nullified in Santa Monica.
As of about Oct. 4, bad air quality in Santa Monica has not had constant negative effects, but two weeks ago the situation was much worse.
At Samo, sports practices were hindered by unsafe conditions. Teddy Berger (’21), who is a cross country runner, elaborated on his team’s experience this year.
“The fires definitely affected our team's ability to practice. A lot of our teammates had to take a rest day because of the fires, and others had to wake up super early to run when the air quality was better,” Berger said.
This year, opposed to the fires in Oct. of 2019, school hasn’t been cancelled, but students are still affected. School is not in-person, so individual students have had to make a choice about safety on their own.
Either way, at this time school would have been back in session, as the air quality is currently safe for most people according to the Air Quality Index (AQI) standards of safety. For the week of Sept. 7 to Sept. 14, Santa Monica was in the red (151-200 on AQI) but by now it has lowered to a moderate (51-100 on AQI) 55. When air quality was red, anyone regardless of condition could have trouble breathing or experience adverse health effects. Currently, however, the only people who could get truly sick from the air are people with an extenuating condition, such as asthma, heart disease or respiratory issues.
This year’s wildfires have burned an unseen amount of land only two months into fire season. With four million acres of land already destroyed, about 23 fires are still burning from Siskiyou county all the way down to Riverside county. As of now, around 8,200 fires across the state have caused 31 fatalities and the destruction of 8,454 structures.
The record breaking fires this year have called to the spotlight the negative effects of climate change on California’s land. The air, and therefore the vegetation, has been extremely dry, allowing for just one lightning strike to ignite huge bonfires. In Santa Monica, close to the ocean, smoke from wildfires has traditionally been well circulated by ocean currents, leaving it out of the danger zone. However, changing air currents caused by a warming ocean presents a risk for worse air quality than ever before. In Oregon, coastal cities previously untouched by fire season are already being flooded with smoke. Though Santa Monica is still in the clear, despite a week or two at the beginning of the season, shifting climates could mean bad luck in later years.
Up to 17,000 firefighters are working to contain the fires, though the job is far from done, with fires ranging from 17-68% contained and covering at the most 985,304 acres for a single fire. Although there have not been grave consequences close by, wildfire season continues to rage in greater California.
For a resource to look into the fires, visit https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/
