Sarah Mills: Help is needed for wildfire evacuees in Saskatchewan
The wildfire situation in Saskatchewan may be turning a corner, but the damage will be felt for some time. On this Day o...
As wildfires burn in the north and crews do what they can to slow them down, the rest of the province is dealing with the smoke.
As smoke continues to drift across the province, we’re hearing about some of the effects it could have on a person’s health.
Dr. Carla Holinaty is a family physician in Sask. She said that there are some common symptoms when it comes to breathing in wildfire smoke.
“Some mild symptoms that people often complain of are things like maybe a little bit of a cough. They’re feeling like they’ve got way more mucus or slime than usual. Maybe they’ve got sore, burning eyes or nose or throat or a headache,” she said.
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But according to Holinaty, symptoms for some people can be much worse.
“Sometimes people start having a more significant cough, or they start to wheeze, or they get a bad asthma attack, or they’re feeling shortness of breath, and those are the people that we worry much more about and maybe have to do some sort of intervention,” said Holinaty.
While most symptoms may only last a few hours, Holinaty said that there are concerns regarding long-term effects.
“The danger is that we don’t really know very well, and that leaves us in a bit of a grey zone. So there are not a lot of studies on this in regular, everyday people,” she said.
“We have some data on sort of chronic exposure to fire smoke in people like firefighters, but then it’s hard to try and figure out how to generalize that to the everyday person,” said Holinaty.
Wildfire smoke is made up of a complex mix of gases, particles, and water vapour, including pollutants like ozone, methane, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds. But it also contains another element, which Holinaty said is the most concerning.
“It’s actually the fine particles that we think probably are the main health risk from wildfire smoke that you’re breathing into your lungs and getting deposited into that system that can cause the problem,” said Holinaty.
The best way to prevent smoke exposure is to stay indoors when the air quality index reaches dangerous levels, such as 10 plus.
“So when the air quality is that bad, there’s actually pretty strong recommendations that people should be considering cancelling or rescheduling things that are outside,” said Holinaty.
“Other things that you can do in your personal life is you can try and protect your indoor air from that smoke getting in, and that would be things like keeping your windows or doors closed as much as possible,” she said.
“We would also suggest to people doing things like using a good quality air filter in your ventilation system or a portable air purifier or air cleaner in your indoor room and doing things like limiting the use of exhaust fans like your bathroom fans that bring outdoor air into the indoor air,” said Holinaty.
With wildfires continuing to rage in the north and the official start of fire season still a ways away, smoke could become the norm for the next few months.
