YAKIMA, WA – In the summer months we constantly smell smoke because of wildfire season. Smoke can have damaging effects on someone’s body if they are inhaling it for long periods.

In the past few years, we have had some pretty large fires in our area, like the Schneider Springs Fire that kept smoke hanging low in the city of Yakima for a long time.

“If it affects us it affects them,” said Lt. Andrew Pfaff for West Valley Fire District 12.

With physical health, breathing in the smoke can have some long-term effects.

“It is strongly associated with respiratory disease, anything like asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” said Dr. Marilyn Black the VP and Senior Technical Advisor for Underwriters Laboratories. “Any sort of person that’s vulnerable to respiratory issues can be severely affected by this contamination.”

These effects won’t happen right away… seeing long terms effects of smoke means you have to be breathing it in or ‘eating it’ as the firefighters call it for at least a few days.

But sometimes when fighting wildfires, firefighters don’t have a choice.

“The biggest thing for me is the fatigue,” said Lt. Pfaff. “A lot of our guys have allergies, it really inflames allergies as well because it’s all that pollen that’s burning.”

Lt. Pfaff told me in wildfire season, firefighters are living in smoke.

“They’re constantly in the smoke,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if they are up against the line or if they’re back at base camp sleeping, you know the inversion and the morning sets the smoke in the valley.”

For him after 7 years of fighting wildland fire experience, dealing with heavy smoke, it’s hard to forget how the thick smoke feels.

“The heat mixed with the smoke makes your nose start to run, makes your eyes water, makes you start coughing, we have helmet shields shrouds that we can put on to breathe into,” said Lt. Pfaff. “I’ve been in situations where you can’t even put that, the shroud doesn’t help, a mask won’t help, an N95 mask won’t help just cause it’s so thick.”

That’s why sheriff’s offices and fire crews stress the importance of leaving in a level 3 evacuation, not only to protect yourself from the flames but also your physical health from the smoke.

One thing Dr. Black told me is if you can’t afford to buy an air purifier yourself during the smoky season, you can assemble one yourself with a box fan, an air filter, and duck tape.

“Put the air filter on the box fan, attach it with tape and when you operate the box fan the air comes through the air filter and blows out the fan,” said Dr. Black. “…and that air filter removes some of the particulate contamination.”

The best way to protect yourself from smoke outside is to get away from it. Meteorologist Monty Webb told us yesterday that when it is hard to breathe outside close all your doors and seal your windows inside.

If you have animals that stay permanently outside like livestock, you can put multiple fans in a barn and have the air circulate around. Dr. Black said this will help the air stay cleaner than it is while just staying in one place. You can also try to face the fans in a certain way where it can help pull the smoky air out of the barn.

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