How to protect yourself from the health hazards of wildfire smoke

John Yang:

The vast plumes of smoke and ash from these fires are threatening the health of people miles away. It's led both the Biden administration and Los Angeles County to declare public health emergencies. Ali Rogin spoke with Dr. Russell Buhr, an assistant professor of medicine and public health at UCLA.

Ali Rogin:

Dr. Buhr, thank you so much for joining us. You've lived on the west coast for a long time. How does this fire compare to others that you've experienced? And what sort of symptoms are folks presenting in your clinical practice right now?

Dr. Russell Buhr, UCLA Health:

It's been a very busy few days and lots of calls and messages from patients and lots of folks coming into clinic feeling more short of breath, more chest tightness and generally just worse than their baseline. And spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to optimize people's respiratory medications to compensate for that, but also a lot of time doing counseling on how to best keep themselves safe. Given these difficult circumstances that we're experiencing here in L.A. right now.

Ali Rogin:

What sort of health issues tend to crop up when there's fires like this?

Russell Buhr:

We worry the most about people with chronic heart and lung disease and that's because small particles can actually work their way all the way down, not only into the deepest parts of the lung, but even sometimes transit into the bloodstream through the lung. And so what we worry about most is acute flare ups of cough, shortness of breath and wheezing, especially in the lungs. And that can affect even people without preexisting lung disease or for people that do have pre-existing lung disease to flare up inflammation to the point of needing medical attention if the inflammation gets so bad that people aren't able to get enough oxygen into their body.

Even short term high doses of exposure like we see when the air quality index is above 200 can be very hazardous to people who are otherwise healthy. And I tell people, you know, even if you're a seasoned athlete, this is not the time to be going outside and taking a nice hike up to the top of the hills to see if you can see the fire or not. This is affecting everyone. You'll even hear in my voice right now a little congestion because my allergies are acting up and I haven't even been outside today. So despite our best efforts, it can be really rough.

Ali Rogin:

And what are some of those efforts? How can people protect themselves?

Russell Buhr:

Yeah, for the most part, we encourage folks, if you don't need to go outside for something right now, try to stay indoors with the doors and windows closed if you can. If you have central air conditioning or heating, then usually there's a filter in the air intake system and those can be changed and even upgraded to be replaced with something that is the equivalent of a high efficiency filter or a HEPA filter. And for people that are particularly sensitive or maybe don't have central air, a HEPA filter in the bedroom at night, because that's where you're going to spend most of your time, can really make a big difference in quality of life.

For those who do need to go outside, we encourage you, if you need to be out for more than five or 10 minutes, you should be wearing a tightly fitted N95 or equivalent mask right now because that has pores that are small enough to filter out those harmful particles in the air. Thankfully, once you're in your car, most cars have the equivalent of an air filter able to filter those things out. So really, it's just if you're going to be out walking around doing your shopping, errands, commuting to and from work or whatever, it may be that you need to be extra careful right now.

Ali Rogin:

Great advice for everybody. Dr. Russell Buhr with UCLA, thank you so much for breaking this down for us.

Russell Buhr:

Thanks for having me.