Bay Area air quality experts are urging the public to stop burning wood fires amid the cooler weather as pollution spikes.
Cooler temperatures mean more people want to use their fireplace, but where there's fire, there's smoke. Erin Demerritt with Bay Area Air Quality Management District told KCBS Radio that even one wood burning fire can have detrimental effects on a neighborhood.
"We have seen an uptick in air pollution over the last several days because of an increase of wood burning," she said. "Just one fire in the neighborhood can create pollution spikes for the entire neighborhood."
Exposure to wood smoke – like cigarette smoke – has been linked to serious respiratory illnesses and even increased risk of heart attacks.
"Burning wood both indoors and outdoors is harmful for our health. It's harmful for healthy adults, but it's especially harmful for those groups that are most susceptible to air pollution like the elderly, children and those with heart and lung disease," Demerritt explained.
When burning a contained fire, millions of microscopic particles, unable to be seen by the naked eye, bypass our body's natural filters, getting deep into the lungs and entering the bloodstream. These particles account for more than 90% of premature deaths related to air pollution.
Even though the California fire season is behind us, Demerritt reminds the public that wood smoke is just as unhealthy as wildfire smoke. "They both contained fine particulate pollution which is very unhealthy for us to breathe. So, even though we're not in wildfire season and we think we're kind of in the clear, in terms of smoke, wood smoke is just as much of a health threat."
Related
