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Long-Term Health Impacts of Wildland Fire Smoke

When the smoke is gone, the hazard lingers inside our bodies.

By now, emergency managers, especially those of us in the West, know all about the health risks of smoke caused by the many and large wildland fires that have impacted almost all regions of the western United States. People with compromised breathing, the young and the old are particularly at risk.

When the rains come, the smoke clears out — the traditional thinking is that the risks have also gone away. Not necessarily so. Read this article, The health hazards from wildfires can linger.

I suggest that you might want to have a coordination meeting with your local public health office and consider combining efforts to share information on these risks, before, during and after the fires are out. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.