How To Stay Safe Amid Wildfire Smoke

Short Wave

NPR

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🗓️ 9 June 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

Smoke from Canadian wildfires is causing poor air quality in parts of the U.S. This smoke can have dangerous health effects because it carries fine particulates known as PM 2.5. With millions of people affected, we thought it would be a good time to turn it over to our friends at NPR's Life Kit podcast. Ever ready with helpful tips, they just released an episode with tips for protecting yourself from wildfire smoke.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.7	Hi Shortwaveers, Emily Quang here.
0:08.5	The air quality in Washington, DC where I live is not great, and that is true in many
0:14.0	places across the country.
0:15.9	You may be living in one of them.
0:18.2	On Wednesday, Hawaii's Mount Kilauea erupted.
0:21.4	The US Geological Survey warned that volcanic gas emissions in the eruption area are elevated,
0:27.6	and hundreds of wildfires continued to burn in Canada.
0:30.9	Winds have carried the smoke across a huge swath of the Midwest, the East Coast, and the
0:36.6	Mid-Atlantic.
0:37.6	And as humans warm up the planet, large and intense wildfires are only more likely.
0:43.4	And long periods of hot dry weather, which is more common with climate change, makes it
0:48.6	easier for these extreme fires to spread quickly.
0:52.7	So to help you navigate this moment, we're bringing you an episode of NPR's LifeKit
0:56.6	podcast, host Maryl Segarra, and NPR producer Liz Baker share tips on how to protect yourself
1:02.6	and the ones you love from Wildfire Smoke.
1:06.6	Hey Liz.
1:07.6	Hi Maryl.
1:08.8	What is it about wildfire smoke that makes it so bad for us?
1:12.8	Well, wildfire smoke has all kinds of bad stuff in it, but what makes it extra, extra
1:17.6	horrible are these PM2.5 particles.
1:21.7	And these are caused by the super, super hot temps that these fires are burning.
	...

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