You can watch Northwest Newsradio’s Ryan Harris’ complete interview with State Health Department’s air quality policy specialist, Kaitlyn Kelly, in the video below:
With a busy wildfire season expected this year, state health officials want you to be ready so you can protect yourself from all the smoke.
We’ve seen how fires can leave smoke hanging in the air through the summer and sometimes into the fall. That smoke contains tiny particles, known as particulate matter, or “P.M. 2.5” because the particles are smaller than 2.5 microns. “Because it’s so small, it gets past our defenses and in our lungs. It can enter our bloodstream,” says Kaitlyn Kelly, the State Health Department’s air quality policy specialist, “and that is the same pollutant that we monitor on air quality monitors to use for tracking wildfire smoke.”
Kelly says anyone can get sick from the particles, but it can be far worse for people with heart or lung problems, “headaches, wheezing, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, chest pain, and we also know that P.M 2.5 can actually lead to hospitalizations and even increase the risk of death.”
So Kelly says it’s important to keep your indoor air as clean as possible either with your air conditioning unit with a filter rated MERV 13 to MERV 18, or by attaching a 20×20 inch MERV 13 to 18 filter to the back of a box fan, which can catch some of those particles. She says once they’ve turned black, which they will after you’ve used them for a while to filter wildfire smoke, they won’t work and will need to be replaced. Kelly says you can also use a portable HEPA air cleaner, but you need one that is the right size for the room it’s in, has the right filter and does not emit ozone.
Remember, those N-95 masks we got for COVID can also filter out most of the small particles in wildfire smoke, so you’ll want to wear them if you have to go outside. Kelly also says your car’s cabin air filters should be pretty new as well. She says you’ll want to run the air conditioner with the recirculate feature on, but if you have to go on a long drive, Kelly says carbon monoxide can build up, so you need to open the windows every so often to get fresh air into your car.