AIR POLLUTION
DUALING
Hazards to Your Health from Wildfire Smoke By Mark Davidson
T
here are occasions when the knowledge and experience a person has developed over their professional career intersects with their personal life. Such is the case for many in the air filtration industry who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in areas where air quality is jeopardized by wildfire smoke. While generally considered to be an issue that those living in the Western half of the United States deal with every year, vast portions of the Northeast and Upper Midwest experienced weeks of air quality alerts in the summer of 2023 due to wildfires in Central and Eastern Canada. In 1999, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created a measure for the quality of the air known as the Air Quality Index (AQI), which is easily accessed through the website AirNow.gov. A network of sensors around the nation reports the current air quality for five pollutants; ground-level ozone, fine particle pollu-
20 IFN ISSUE 5 2023
tion, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Alerts are announced when the AQI Index for a given area is deemed to be unhealthy. There is a specific area of AirNow dedicated to conditions created by wildfire smoke. Air filtration professionals, accustomed to troubleshooting and recommending solutions for a wide range of industrial and commercial applications, now use these skills in their homes and those of their family and friends when the AQI Index climbs due to wildfire smoke. The same steps used when troubleshooting on a job are followed and one of the first steps to improving air quality is to identify the particles of concern and determine how best to remove those from the indoor environment.
Two Hazardous Components of Wildfire Smoke Wildfire smoke is comprised of particulate matter and various gaseous substances. Particulate matter generated by burning matter become suspended in the air and carried vast distances. While the smoke odor is a nuisance, the fine particles are harmful to human health. Gaseous substances are released by the process of combustion. These include nitrogen dioxide, various volatile organic chemicals (VOC), and ozone. Due to the presence of other powerful odors, ozone is sometimes not immediately detected by our sense of smell. The damage ozone can