As Wildfire Smoke Increases Bad-Air Days, Are Government Agencies Doing Enough?

CHICAGO—As Canadian wildfire smoke moved south into the American Midwest last week, this city experienced not only some of the worst air quality in the United States, but in the entire world.

The day before smoke rolled in, the Cook County government sent out air-quality warnings to residents who subscribed to text alerts. Yet even as a pollutant-filled haze obscured the city’s iconic skyline, Chicagoans continued with their afternoon runs and long bike rides. Chicago Public Schools went on with outdoor after-school sports as planned and the White Sox played the Detroit Tigers through stifling conditions.

That gap demonstrates substantial room for growth when it comes to public messaging around air quality, particularly in an era when extreme conditions fueled by climate change can cause lasting health problems.

In the epicenter of the country’s wildfires, researchers at Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research delved into this issue in a 2022 study. They used data from cell phones, social media, Google searches and air pollution sensors in 1,520 single-family homes across the U.S. to see how Americans were seeking information about air pollution and how they responded to it.

That research found that internet searches for air-quality information increased on heavy smoke days, regardless of the household’s income. However, searches for protective measures such as air filters and masks were higher in wealthier neighborhoods. High-income residents were also more likely to shelter at home.

It’s good that people recognize when there’s smoke in the air, said Marshall Burke, associate professor of environmental social science at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability and one of the study’s authors. But the research suggests that government warnings are insufficient because not everyone can afford to protect themselves.

“If that is indeed driven by income, then I think this suggests that we need to do a lot more to make sure low-income populations are informed about the risks and have access to protective technologies,” Marshall said. “My worry certainly is that wealthier people are able to afford air filtration and lower-income people might not be able to. And so that could be a substantial potential role for public policy to help plug that gap.”

The study also found that indoor air concentrations of PM2.5, tiny and deadly particulate matter, can be up to three to four times higher than public health exposure guidelines on heavy-smoke days. Decades of research has shown that inhaling those particles, which carry a nasty mix of toxic substances, can cause a range of adverse health outcomes, Marshall said. 

The particles burrow deep into the lungs, cross into the blood and cause inflammation, cardiovascular disease, respiratory issues and cognitive problems. Those fine particle pollutants can also damage crops and contribute to acid rain, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

People with asthma, breathing issues, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease should check the air quality index—AQI—every day of the summer, said Dr. Susan Buchanan, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Public Health. The EPA and its partners operate AirNow.gov, where you can check the air quality by punching in your ZIP code.

“What I think the government could do is make sure that people know what the AQI is and offer [help], like we have cooling centers, centers with filtered air for people who don’t have air conditioning and have lung disease so they can stay inside filtered air,” Buchanan said.

In Chicago, the city recommended residents use public libraries, senior centers, park district buildings and community service centers with air conditioning if they lacked clean air at home. The city also distributed masks to residents experiencing homelessness and provided masks at its community and senior centers. 

But other cities, particularly those out West, have gone a step further and embraced the idea of clean-air centers. California launched a state-wide pilot program providing updated air filtration systems in public buildings, while Seattle began a similar program in 2019. The air filters have the added benefit of filtering out other particles that can sicken people, such as COVID-19.

Still, finding sustainable funding for those resources is difficult, said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs at the Respiratory Health Association. He notes that Illinois used nearly $30 million of its federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to provide air filters to schools.

“That was great, but that was sort of a one-time COVID funding thing that the state had,” Urbaszewski said. “There is no long-term funding for things like that.”

Those funding streams are more precarious given President Donald Trump’s funding cuts and freezes and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s skepticism of existing public health measures. The EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also lost hundreds of employees since January, through both layoffs and resignations.

Government response to air hazards “really relies on the country’s public health infrastructure and unfortunately, there are so many ways in which that infrastructure is under threat,” said Laura Kate Bender, vice president of public policy at the American Lung Association. 

Her group is working on a project to help schools improve their indoor air “in the context of a changing climate.” 

“We’re pushing hard for funding streams, like the Centers for Disease Control has a climate and health program that grants states dollars to help deal with the local health impacts of climate change they’re already experiencing,” Bender said. “That funding is critical and of course is on the chopping block.”

In an email response to Inside Climate News, a White House official pushed back.

“The Department of Health and Human Service and the CDC are not ‘cutting’ these functions – air quality efforts will be managed by the newly formed Administration for Healthy America,” the official wrote.

Overall, Trump has proposed a 26 percent cut in the upcoming budget of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of which CDC is a part. Across the federal government, climate-related funding has been a consistent target.

In a Tuesday briefing on wildfires, the president and his cabinet did not name climate change as the leading cause of mounting risks from that type of natural disaster, but rather timber and debris on forest floors.

“We know that the best and most cost effective way to stop these terrible fires is to remove the fuel load that feeds them,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said. “We are increasing timber production by 25 percent, thanks to President Trump, with the goal of not only supporting our industry partners and our rural communities, but also reducing the number of catastrophic wildfires.”

Meanwhile, government regulations to protect against air pollutants already had loopholes for wildfire impacts. A 2023 investigation by the California Newsroom, MuckRock and The Guardian found that local regulators were increasingly asking the EPA not to count air pollution caused by wildfires when deciding if their regions are meeting federal standards, and industry groups have worked with some of those local regulators to get the exemptions.

“No. 1, we find that wildfire smoke is the fastest-growing source of dirty air in the country by far, and No. 2, it’s unregulated by our key air quality regulation,” said Stanford’s Burke. “So jurisdictions can be in compliance with the Clean Air Act, but still have their air getting dirtier due to wildfire smoke.”