It’s not even springtime yet, and wildfire smoke from Texas already has seeped into the Midwest.
In Canada, glowing coals still smolder from last year’s wildfires, just waiting to come back to life.
Ergo, another smog-filled summer looms for Chicago, and now is the time to prepare for this dangerous health threat. With lives at stake, the city must do more than try to wing it again, as it did last year. Chicago needs an effective 2024 plan to confront a potential killer.
Last summer, Chicagoans choked on some of the worst air of any major city in the world. The skies were tinged with a yellowish haze that made the sun look like it was hiding behind a nicotine-stained fog bank.
Satellite images showed massive smoke plumes drifting into the area. Many people not only saw and smelled the smoke but felt it in their chests. The primary pollutant from wildfires, referred to as PM2.5, is made up of tiny soot particles that embed themselves in the respiratory system, leading to coughing, wheezing and difficulty breathing. The health effect is akin to taking up cigarettes.
The main culprits were wildfires that burned for months in Canada. Its fire season started early and ended late, ultimately scorching an area the size of North Dakota. Now, north of the border, this year’s fire season is getting off to a similarly early start.
As the planet gets warmer, forests that were cool and moist for centuries have become hotter and dryer, creating a tinderbox across the upper reaches of North America. The Canadian government recently warned that smoke from its fires will likely be worse this year than in the record-breaking 2023, and Alberta declared that its 2024 fire season began in earnest last month, well ahead of what was normal in the past.
In the short term, prevention is difficult. Some of the biggest fires are ignited by lightning, and burn in remote areas where large-scale firefighting efforts are difficult to carry out. Forests were charred across a vast area last year, from British Columbia in the west to Alberta in the center and east through Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.
Today, the Canadian media is agog about “zombie fires” left over from last year’s conflagrations. These smoldering coals are expected to rekindle as warmer conditions return. Like last year, much of America’s Midwest and Northeast will be at the mercy of prevailing winds that could blow in Canadian smoke.
Canada is not the only threat: The western U.S. is acutely vulnerable to wildfires and those now burning in Texas already have sent plumes northward through the central Plains, into Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.
The resulting pollution is especially hazardous to the young and the old, as well as others with heart conditions, diabetes or breathing problems such as asthma. Taken together, those risk factors encompass a large percentage of the Chicago area’s population.
The smoke may be practically impossible to stop, but the city is far from helpless. Among other actions, local government needs to boost its pollution monitoring, so it can sound the alarm promptly when air quality is about to deteriorate.
Officials also should step up outreach and education, reminding people to stay indoors with windows closed when necessary. It’s similarly important to change HVAC filters frequently and wear COVID-19-style N95 masks when outdoors on smoky days.
Just as it sets up cooling centers during hot spells, Chicago also needs to make filtered rooms available for people to breathe clean air. Those steps can help mitigate the effects of pollution.
Long term, public officials could do more, by encouraging walking, cycling and the use of public transit, for instance, or setting aside more green spaces. As it stands, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may require Chicago and other parts of the state to impose remedial actions. As the Tribune reported in November, new factories could experience permitting delays, and existing ones could be forced to install costly new pollution controls, among other measures that kick in when air quality is unusually bad for an extended period.
Many Chicagoans have come to expect little from Mayor Brandon Johnson, whose first year in office delivered one disappointment after another. Among his gaffes was the bungled firing of the city’s highly credible public health leader, Dr. Allison Arwady. She would have come in handy this summer if waves of smog blow in, as feared.
Johnson won the mayoral election partly by speaking from the heart about how isolating and devastating poverty can be, making much of having grown up in a low-income home and having taught, for a part of his career, in low-income schools.
Mayor, socioeconomic status is considered one of the major risk factors for health damage from wildfire smoke. Impoverished children and older adults suffer disproportionately from heart and lung diseases that make people especially vulnerable to air pollution. They may find it unaffordable to protect themselves with high-grade HVAC filters and air purifiers, and impractical to avoid opening windows and going outside during hot weather.
Those constituents may well need your help this summer. Get an effective initiative underway — before the smoke arrives.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.