Since mid-July, the scent of wildfire smoke has become pervasive for Boiseans.
Michael Toole, Regional Airshed Coordinator for the Idaho Department of Environmental Health, says the Treasure Valley area has been impacted by the proximity of wildfires located near the Paddock Reservoir and in eastern Oregon.
“They [fires in eastern Oregon] were burning a lot of acreage and were really active and that smoke was just right upwind from us,” Toole said. “It just came down right through the [Treasure] Valley, so we saw increased impacts.”
The Paddock Fire, which started on Aug. 5 from a lightning strike, has burned over 187,000 acres, reaching northeastern counties of Idaho and parts of Washington.
Additionally, the air quality in Boise was also impacted by the Park Fire located in northern California.
“That smoke was being produced at a rapid pace,” Toole said. “It just blew right through the Treasure Valley. we saw pretty high levels [of smoke].”
Over the last couple weeks, air quality levels in Boise have fluctuated from moderate to unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Toole acknowledged the productive conversations he’s had with locals who’ve called in to ask questions and credits school districts in the Treasure Valley for taking initiative regarding wildfires and air quality.
“They’re more knowledgeable now, people expect wildfire smoke, so you kind of become dull to it,” Toole said. “ [There’s been] a lot of positive feedback from school districts. School districts have been very proactive in establishing their own criteria for how to handle wildfire smoke at different levels.”
The West Ada School District monitors their activity for sports and children’s outdoor activities based on the miles of visibility during a wildfire smoke event.
If there’s 1.5 to 3 miles of visibility, this is categorized as unhealthy, which restricts children from outdoor activities as well as athletic practices and games are moved indoors.
Toole added that the Treasure Valley could remain in the moderate air quality index levels for the rest of August, but depending on factors such as weather and fire activity, levels could change for the better or the worse.
“We could still have days up in the orange and in the red, depending on what we see in the next few weeks,” Toole said. “Weather wise, if we warm back up, if we get stagnant winds, if we get new fires, that could change a lot of things. It’s hard to really look too far ahead.”
On Aug. 14, Boise State Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Dr. Mojtaba Sadegh delivered an online lecture by St. Luke’s on the health and societal impacts of wildfires. Sadegh addressed certain groups as “highly vulnerable”, which factors in from income, minority status, type of housing and location.
According to Sadegh, these factors play a role in wildfire impact, as those in lower income communities have a lower adaptation capacity, which refers to one’s ability to respond in the event of an evacuation order.
Sadegh mentioned the impact climate change has had on wildfires in the United States.
“We know across the United States, since the beginning of the 20th century, annual average temperatures [have] increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit,” Sadegh said.
Dr. Alex Rabin, Clinical Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine for the University of Michigan explained in the lecture the dangers of inhaling wildfire smoke due to its complex mix of harmful chemicals which contain pollutants from burning structures and vehicles.
Rabin added that the dangers of long exposure to wildfire smoke could lead to respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Rabin noted that despite federal laws such as the Clean Air Act in 1970, the closing of coal fired power plants and the invention of electric vehicles, wildfires continue to contribute to rapid rates of air pollution worldwide.
“We are, as a result, losing ground to climate change, despite a really great effort to reduce air pollution overall in particulate matter.” Rabin said.
In 2024, more than 6 million acres across the United States have burned due to wildfires.
Dr. Eric Sims, an emergency physician at St. Luke’s, says that the particular matter called PM 2.5, poses a threat to people’s health due to its miniscule size of 2.5 microns in diameter.
“The trouble is it gets past the nasopharynx, and then it gets all the way down to the tiniest part of your lungs, and can even cross into the bloodstream,” Sims said. “Down in those tiniest parts of your airways, it causes persistent inflammation that triggers part of your immune system to activate and deplete your body of that immune fighting ability.”
Sims said because of the recent wildfires, he’s seen an increase of patients that complain of COVID-19 like symptoms despite negative test results, that are dealing with the effects of poor regional air quality.
“Things like cough[ing] and congestion, feeling achy, feeling tired, watery eyes,” Sims said. “People with asthma and COPD are seeing increases in the severity of frequency of their symptoms and just getting worse with their usual treatment.”
Sims added that elderly and homeless populations have been affected the most by the wildfire smoke. Boise hospitals have seen an increase in visits since the wildfires.
“Homeless populations are people that don’t have access to clean air in their homes,” Sims said. “So people who don’t have well ventilated, well sealed homes, people that live around wildfires [are impacted more].”
Sims recommends that locals check out the air quality index (AQI) app as a tool to discover what the different risk qualities are each day.
“I think it’s as important in the Pacific Northwest as looking at something like the temperature of that day when you go out — thinking about what the AQI is,” Sims said. “Especially in the summer and early fall, when the air quality tends to be at its worst.”
According to Sims, multiple studies that focused on wildfire last year found that college students are more likely to be depressed when the wildfires worsen due to the limitations on being able to go outside.
Sims also touched on the impacts wildfires have on children’s mental health due to the excessive exposure to high amounts of PM 2.5 throughout the day.
“Kids that were exposed to higher concentration of PM 2.5 in schools had a hard time paying attention in class, test scores were lower during times of severe wildfire smoke and degraded air quality,” Sims said.
With other regions being impacted by wildfires, Sims emphasized that this crisis needs to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.
“This is a global problem, and we need to start thinking about how we’re going to work together to reduce this global problem [that’s] happening year on year,” Sims said. “So that we can get back into doing things with fun in the summertime.”
