Latest Smoke Stories

By Maddalena Jackson, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Jun. 25--As the Sacramento area settled into what promises to be a week of hazy air, more attention was being paid to what that could mean in terms of health. "There are almost 1,000 fires in Northern California," said Daniel Berlant of the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The smoke "is a combination of all these fires." He checked his numbers. "Nine hundred eighty three fires." Air quality is determined by forcing air...

By SHILLINGTON, David On late-night walks through our neighbourhood, I often notice smelly smoke emanating from neighbours' chimneys. Sometimes the smoke forms a wide range of interesting patterns against the backdrop of the yellow sodium street lighting. However, often the sheer pungence has me gasping and causes me to instinctively wrinkle my nose in self defence as I hurry past some offensive odours. This defeats the reason for my walks, namely to get some fresh air before retiring to...

By Tim Moran, The Modesto Bee, Calif. Jun. 24--Where there's smoke, there's fire -- and vice versa. Wildfires are raging throughout Northern California, and that's why the air in the Northern San Joaquin Valley is hazy to downright smoky. The fires are to blame for the unhealthy air quality throughout the region. A fire in Napa and Solano counties is generating significant amounts of smoke, which is carried into the valley on delta breezes. To the east of Modesto, a 600-acre fire in...

A REALLY hefty cast iron mining kettle torch lamp by A C Wells & Co, offered with sale particulars that describe it as unbreakable and "the only lamp used in the gold & diamond mines of South Africa", will invite pounds40-pounds60 at Truro Auction Centre on Friday. In bright red, this strong and vital piece of equipment has nothing more than a wire swing handle on its very basic shape, and could have many uses in the home, all ornamental, though - unlike the old German tinplate steam...

A new study provides the most direct evidence that there exists a causal link between smoking during pregnancy and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Clinicians have long considered prenatal cigarette smoke exposure a major contributing risk factor for SIDS, but researchers had not proved a casual relationship. Other contributing factors include disturbances of breathing and heart rate regulation and impaired arousal responses, thermal stress (primarily overheating from too high...

If you've ever burned your dinner, you know how startling a smoke alarm can be. Now, imagine you're 220 miles away from Earth in an orbiting lab when the alarm sounds. Fires are no laughing matter on Earth, but in space they could be even more devastating."If a chair is on fire in your home, you have time to get out. In a spacecraft, you don't," said NASA scientist Dr. David Urban. "You have to detect smoke in an early pre-fire state, so you can stop it before it...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The high-pitched signal typically used in smoke alarms may not wake older adults, according to a study conducted by the Fire Protection Research Foundation. In comparative tests on various alarm sounds, adults aged 65 years and older were much more likely to wake to a mixed-frequency signal than a pure high-frequency signal used in standard US smoke alarms. Household smoke alarms reduce the chances of dying in a fire by up to 50 percent when present and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A construction worker died in a smokestack fire at a West Virginia power plant on Saturday and three others were plucked by helicopter from the 900-foot (275 meter) structure while it still burned, authorities said. The rescue "would have been heroic under any conditions, but it was at night, the stack was still on fire; it's just amazing," Marshall County Sheriff John Gruzinskas said. The three rescued workers were in stable condition when they were transferred...

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - A California environmental agency voted on Thursday to classify tobacco smoke as a "toxic air contaminant," a first-in-the-nation move that could toughen state regulations on cigarette smoke. The designation by California's Air Resources Board starts a process that could lead to further smoking bans in a state that has often led the nation in health and ecological regulation. "I think there is no question that this puts California way ahead," said...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If someone is trying to make smoking look glamorous, it isn't at the movies, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Their analysis of more than 400 blockbuster films shows that villains smoke more than heroes, and the poor light up more often than the rich. "Most investigators have concluded that smoking is portrayed as glamorous and positive, but our study shows that the exact opposite is true," said Dr. Karan Omidvari of St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey,...