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 the Stanislaus National Forest is contributing to the smoky sky. Air tankers and helicopters are dumping retardant on the blaze, but firefighters are having to hike miles through rugged terrain without trails to get to it, forest spokesman Jerry Snyder said.
Oakdale has been engulfed in smoke from the fires, and San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District monitors are picking up smoke particles in Stockton and Modesto, according to Shawn Ferreria, senior air quality specialist with the district.
The district doesn’t have monitors in Oakdale, but a resident reported heavy smoke in town Monday morning. A spokeswoman for Oak Valley Hospital in Oakdale said Monday evening that the emergency room there has not experienced an increase in patients because of the air quality.
A staff member in the emergency room at Doctors Medical Center said that as of 7:30 p.m. Monday there had not been an increase in ER patients because of the dirty air although he expected to get a few extra patients.
Residents with asthma or other respiratory problems are urged to stay indoors. The small particles in the smoke are capable of getting deep into the lungs, Ferreria said, causing health problems.
Exposure to the particle pollution can aggravate lung disease, cause asthma attacks and acute bronchitis and increase the risk of respiratory infections, according to the air district.
Short-term exposure to particle pollution also has been linked to heart attacks and arrhythmia in people with heart disease, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Older adults and children should avoid prolonged exposure and strenuous activities, and everyone else should reduce exposure and heavy exertion, air district officials warn.
Air quality might get worse
If the conditions persist today, Ferreria predicted that San Joaquin County air will be declared unhealthy and Stanislaus County as unhealthy for sensitive groups. That would move Stanislaus County from a yellow air quality status to orange in the alert system.
“Those are very important triggers to us,” said Dr. John Walker, Stanislaus County’s public health officer.
“At orange, we seek to notify the at-risk groups, and we have several groups of concern,” he said. Those include asthmatics, adults with chronic lung disease and those with heart disease.
The air quality is rated on a six-point scale: good, moderate, unhealthy for sensitive groups, unhealthy, hazardous and very unhealthy.
The thunderstorm system that came through California on Saturday generated 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes and sparked more than 700 fires, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Many of those were small and were controlled at less than a few acres, he said. But some, fanned by wind, have grown much larger. In addition to the Tuolumne fire, Cal Fire is fighting blazes in Solano, Calaveras, Mendocino, Lassen and Modoc counties, Berlant said.
Fire crews might take a few more days to get all the fires under control, Berlant said. Air quality problems are likely to persist until the fires are out, Ferreria said.
Bee staff writer Emilie Raguso contributed to this report.
Bee staff writer Tim Moran can be reached at [email protected] or 578-2349.
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