Brooke Simpson- California's Wildfires Emitted a Year's Worth of Pollution in Less Than a Week

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/western-wildfires/california-wildfires-emitted-year-s-worth-car-pollution-less-week-n810421

California Wildfires Emitted a Year’s Worth of Car Pollution in Less Than a Week

            The California wildfires have created a health threat by reducing air quality in the Bay Area, leaving elderly and those with breathing problems especially vulnerable, but everyone is at risk.  Marathons and football games have been cancelled in San Francisco and Oakland, and schools or any outdoor activities have been cancelled in Northern California.  Cars can pollute in multiple ways, but the wind has blown tons of pollution into a heavily populated area.  The air quality index has reached 200, which was worse than Beijing’s 59 Friday.  The Bay Area Air Quality Management District warned that the Bay Area’s air quality could improve and worsen quickly, and numbers change hourly.  They have also recommended and distributed filtration masks to keep particles from being inhaled, but the best places to be are places with filtered air.  One of the reasons that the smoke from the wildfires is so bad is because they have burned so many houses down, and the plastics in the houses create their own toxic emissions.  Experts don’t think the pollution will impact the area in the long run, but it all depends on the wind.  The rain should help, but there are a few weeks until the rainy season starts.

            The article was written by Elizabeth Chuck for NBC News on October 13, 2017.   Before reading the article I knew about the California wildfires and all the destruction they had caused, but I wasn’t aware of all of the health concerns they had caused.  The article was written mostly for Californians to inform them about the air quality and puts it in perspective about how bad it really is by bringing up Beijing.  The article wants people to know that the wildfires in California are really hazardous to people’s health and that the emissions from the fires are terrible.  The California wildfires can be compared to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which also happened in October, that also ruined tens of thousands of structures.