Today on NPR’s All Things Considered, scientists from the LA Fire HEALTH Study talked to reporter Alejandra Borunda about the findings emerging from the first year of research into the health impacts of the LA wildfires.
Last January, fires were raging across Los Angeles, smothering some 20 million people across the region in toxic smoke and ash.
LA residents worried that the air was toxic, the soil contaminated, and the water poisoned. Questions swirled about the health risks created by the burns — and there were few answers at hand from city, state or federal leaders.
Scientists from Los Angeles and around the country quickly scrambled into action as fires burned through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. The priority, says UCLA physician and disaster researcher David Eisenman, was keeping people safe in the short term. But the fires also presented a moment to learn crucial missing information about the health effects of wildfires to help those affected and to better protect people’s health from the inevitable next ones.
“This won’t be the last wildfire that Los Angeles sees,” says Eisenman. “Part of the community recovery process is to learn from what we experienced.”
After the fires, scientists began testing for lead, arsenic, and other toxic compounds in the soil, air, and water in and around the burn areas.
But many scientists suspected the smoke and ash spread other toxic particles and gases widely, too — chemicals that standard EPA and state monitors didn’t test.
“We need to test more than just what the EPA calls for. And the EPA has limited resources,” says Kari Nadeau, an environmental health scientist at Harvard University and one of the leads for the new research consortium. “But as academics, we can test for hundreds of things all at once, which helps the community. Because what you don’t know, you don’t know, but it can still hurt you.”