Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show expanded byline information on articles

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Reporting on Earth’s changing climate and the search for solutions

See more coverage in your recommendations

Climate & environment

The Climate Coach newsletter

Climate alerts

The worry was palpable this week: With D.C. under major <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/07/air-quality-index-explained-canada-wildfires/" target=_blank>air quality warnings</a> due to massive <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/06/07/canada-wildfires-weather-air-quality/" target=_blank>wildfires in Canada</a>, is it okay for kids to go to school? Should everyone be wearing masks?

My answer: Turn to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2023/06/08/how-choose-air-purifier/" target=_blank>HEPA-grade air purifiers</a>, if you can. On Wednesday, they were still easy to get with one-day delivery, something I found both revealing and also a little worrying — though by Thursday it was harder to get some that quickly.

Then I set to the work of smoke-proofing my house as much as possible, hoping to squeeze as much protection as I could out of what we already had — windows, several HEPA purifiers that I could place wherever I liked and two at-home air quality monitors — not necessarily what scientists use in the lab, but better than nothing. At the end of the process, I came to this conclusion: Improving your indoor air quality is possible, but not always easy — or cheap. And accepting that you can make things better, but not perfect, is very important.

CANADA-FIRE

Wildfire smoke can travel great <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/smoke-map-air-quality-wildfires/" target=_blank>distances</a>, with particulates small enough to enter the bloodstream through your lungs if inhaled. If you are in an area <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/wildfire-smoke-air-quality-health-exposure/" target=_blank>affected</a> by smoke, limit your outdoor activities, especially during <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/06/07/exercise-outdoors-air-quality-wildfire-smoke/" target=_blank>exercise</a>, and wear a good mask outside that can filter fine particles. Here is how to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/06/07/wildfire-smoke-health-protection/" target=_blank>protect</a> yourself from wildfire smoke.

As a writer who covers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/18/climate-change-glacier-antarctica/" target=_blank>climate change</a> and the environment and also covered the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/02/10/carbon-dioxide-device-coronavirus/" target=_blank>coronavirus pandemic</a>, I’ve had to learn more than most about air quality, how much it matters, and how to preserve it. This doesn’t make me an expert, merely an occupational dabbler. Still, it seems clear to me that during an event like this, there are a number of things everybody should know:

<a href="https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/what-hepa-filter" target=_blank>HEPA</a> air purifiers, which are capable of removing many types of small particles from the air that we might otherwise breathe — including pollutants, bacteria and viruses, and allergens — are becoming an ever larger part of our lives, necessarily so. In the context of the pandemic — or just flu season — they can reduce transmission of airborne respiratory viruses such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> and <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd9149" target=_blank>the flu</a>. During a poor air quality event they can protect your lungs, your bloodstream and even <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9491465/" target=_blank>your brain</a> — because we are still learning about just how dangerous small particles of air pollution can be.

“I look at them as the seat belt for lungs. Put them where you spend most of your time,” said Mark Hernandez, an air quality expert at the University of Colorado at Boulder who is helping to install these filters in schools across the state in partnership with Colorado’s <a href="https://covid19.colorado.gov/clean-air-for-schools" target=_blank>Clean Air for Schools</a> program.

Sucharas Wongpeth

Hernandez thinks HEPA filters are one of the simplest and best moves to protect against wildfire smoke — as long as they are certified by <a href="https://ahamverifide.org/" target=_blank>AHAM</a> (the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers), a stamp ensuring that the devices do what they say they do.

“It costs you 10 bucks a year to run them on electricity, 50 bucks a year for a filter; do the math, and it’s pennies a day,” Hernandez said. “And we know they work. This is now a 60-to-70-year-old technology; it came out of NASA. That’s why they’re on the space shuttles, because they work.”

How long will wildfire smoke last? Here's what we know.

In many cases, you can also attempt to clean the air at a central point in your home by putting strong filters within your HVAC system. Experts <a href="https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/wildfires-and-indoor-air-quality-iaq" target=_blank>generally recommend</a> MERV-13 level filters or higher. Even so, it doesn’t hurt to have portable HEPA filters that can be placed in key locations, especially where people are spending time or sleeping. (Commercial buildings, schools and other larger structures frequented by many people will need <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/documents/ashrae_journal_article_march_2021-tagged.pdf" target=_blank>additional steps</a> to clean air — these are steps for your individual home.)

Taking steps such as buying a HEPA system can be expensive. It is possible to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/01/13/air-filter-diy-covid/" target=_blank>make your own filter</a> for less out of a box fan and other common household items.

2. Do your best to seal your house. It doesn’t just protect on days of poor air quality — it saves energy.

When I got home and started to secure my house, I found the air quality levels weren’t terrible but weren’t always great, either. Levels of PM2.5 — tiny, harmful air pollutants found in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/wildfire-smoke-air-quality-health-exposure/" target=_blank>wildfire smoke</a> — in my office, for instance, were well above my comfort zone, albeit still much lower than levels outside. Levels were even higher in the basement of the house.

I quickly found some potential culprits. Several windows in the house had sagged downward, leaving them slightly open — something that can just happen with windows if you don’t latch them, which in many cases we hadn’t. This took about five minutes to fix.

New Africa

In my basement, the worst room in the house was the sole one that featured a window air-conditioning unit. I took it out and closed and latched the window. Measurements slowly began to get better.

The steps that I took, which anyone can take, will not only make the air indoors cleaner but also seal off my home, saving energy. (Longer term, one can do <a href="https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/air-sealing-your-home" target="_blank">even more to seal your house</a>, such as caulking around the outside of windows.)

Which is not to say it’s easy or straightforward. We’re told to ventilate our houses when cooking, especially if we have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/02/04/how-to-use-gas-stove-safely/" target=_blank>gas stoves</a>, and when we have a lot of people over. Then we get a wildfire smoke event, and suddenly the same houses need to be well-sealed. It’s no wonder that people often find indoor air quality measures confusing.

The norms for how we measure air inside homes don’t help. We have screens, typically in the form of thermostats, that tell us the indoor temperature and sometimes the humidity. But you generally have to go out and buy special products to learn about indoor carbon dioxide, particulate matter, formaldehyde and other measurements.

Here's how to protect yourself from wildfire smoke

“What I’m hoping for as an educator, is that we can reduce this to a dashboard,” Hernandez said. During the pandemic, Hernandez <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2021/indoor-air-quality-safety-experiment/" target=_blank>outfitted a restaurant in Big Sur, Calif., </a>with both sensors and multiple air purifiers so that he had knowledge of, and substantial control over, the indoor air quality levels — and whether respiratory particles could be transmitted.

“You get in your car, and you get used to the gauge that’s reporting oil pressure should be in this range, the gauge reporting temperature of my engine should be in this range. You get what’s normal and what’s not. And that’s really where we need to be,” Hernandez added.

4. Don’t think of this as a single event

Experts today are simultaneously predicting future pandemics and worsening climate change. Meanwhile, we keep learning more and more about the dangers of breathing in small particles of air pollutants.

In this context, it seems pretty clear that air purifiers with HEPA filters and other measures are going to become increasingly common, like masks — which also, when of high quality and worn properly, help <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/06/07/wildfire-smoke-health-protection/" target=_blank>protect against wildfire smoke</a> inhalation.

The massive blazes will still be episodic events, hard to predict very far in advance and temporary in how they afflict us. But high-quality filters simultaneously remove pollution from other sources, ranging from smokers to the byproducts of burning from a gas range. And if and when another airborne pandemic comes, they’ll probably help there too. Meanwhile, indoor air quality measurement devices can alert us to when something is abnormal.

So — measuring and filtering, measuring and filtering. While it takes work and some learning, and has a cost, the good news is that the tools are available to let us do this.

5. Safer doesn’t mean living in a bubble

In my case, the steps above probably improved my indoor air quality and made my family safer during this extreme event. But the process was also pretty humbling. Right when I thought I’d thought of everything, I realized my own bedroom, which I had not tested, thinking it was like other rooms near it, still had relatively poor air quality. Presumably, outdoor air was still getting in somehow. As of this writing, I haven’t entirely figured out why.

How bad is the wildfire smoke in your city? Use our tool to find out.

Perhaps the most important words of wisdom that I heard from Hernandez speak directly to this. “There’s no such thing as safe; it’s always safer,” he told me. Safety is relative. We’re always breathing at least some air pollution. It would be better if we breathed zero, but that’s not possible. At the same time, it’s also possible to become overly stressed about particles that we can’t control — which isn’t healthy either.

So, yes, think about your home or living space, how it works, take some measurements, try to filter some air. That’s the world we live in, and consciousness is a good thing. At the same time, though, recognize that all of humanity is going to take its dings from climate change and none of us are exempt. Remember that in the end, we’re all in it together and all just adapting as best we can.

2020 Pulitzer Prize, explanatory reporting.

Yale University, BA in English

Chris Mooney is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter covering climate change, energy, and the environment. He has reported from the 2015 Paris climate negotiations, the Northwest Passage, and the Greenland ice sheet, among other locations, and has written four books about science, politics and climate change.

Chris Mooney

How to keep indoor air clean during wildfires

the-washington-post

Soft,Focus,To,Filter,Of,Air,Handing,Unit,,Technician,Checking

Shutterstock / Sucharas Wongpeth

Wildfire Smoke - Arlington, VA

The Washington Post

Matt McClain

Climate

Weather

Climate Solutions

Animals

Climate Lab

Green Living

Environment

washpost

prism://prism.query/site,/climate-environment/environment&limit=20

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/climate-environment&limit=20

Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter and get advice for life on our changing planet, in your inbox every Tuesday.

Five things a climate reporter wants you to know about making indoor air safer

Canadian wildfire smoke