Smoke and Mirrors

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The opposite is also true. That’s particularly bad news for frontline firefighters who can spend hundreds if not thousands of hours sucking in poisonous particles, which adds a potentially deadly long term risk to the short term risk they’re taking in the line of fire. And believe it or not, until recently, many of these firefighters weren’t even allowed to wear face masks. In the NYT (Gift Article) Hannah Dreier and Eli Murray cut through the smokescreen to investigate something the Forest Service hasn’t, by measuring just how hazardous the air near fires can get. The answer won’t surprise anyone in the La Grande Hotshots firefighting crew. “One longtime member died last year after being diagnosed at 40 with brain cancer. A former crew leader is being treated for both leukemia and lymphoma diagnosed in his 40s. Another colleague was recently told that he has the lungs of a lifelong chain-smoker.” Inside the Poisonous Smoke Killing Wildfire Fighters at Young Ages.