Hot take: It really shouldn’t be this hard to breathe.
Over the past couple months San Francisco Bay Area residents have been hit with a double whammy: the delicate yet deadly politics of the COVID-19 virus alongside rampant and unyielding wildfires, which have burned more than 4 million acres in California so far. San Francisco proper has been safe from the flames, but certainly not the smoke. No day was a greater reminder of the crisis than September 9th, when our skies turned from foggy grey to neon orange.
Picture taken at 11AM in the Mission District
It was a Wednesday, and like always, at 8:30am I drove my mom to work. We watched as the skies turned from an eerie peach glow to a neon orange sheet of haze. The vibe in the city that day can only be described as apocalyptic. I was ready to start putting into practice everything I’d learned from the walking dead, but instead I had zoom class.
Walking through the streets of SF at 12 PM
It turns out this spooky coloring was created by a layer of smoke and ash nearly fifty thousand feet high that was blocking the sun and scattering the light. Labor day weekend had coincided with a record-breaking heat wave and wildfires in the Sierra National Forest, to the east of SF, had spread quickly. I watched on tv as several hundred campers and hikers in the area had to be airlifted from a lake, which had been surrounded on all sides by flames.
Although fire season is a constant threat in California, the scale and destruction of the 2020 season is at an all time high. Experts have linked worsening wildfire seasons to climate change, as emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases have led to warmer and drier conditions. In California, more than 10,500 homes and other structures have been destroyed, and there have been at least 31 deaths, with even more people reported missing. With the constant threat of evacuation looming, many people have packed up their bags, ready to leave at a moments notice. On a governmental level, the costs of both preventing and fighting these fires has risen dramatically this year, as health officials must worry about the spread of COVID-19.
A recent study examined the effects of wildfire allied pollutants on COVID-19 cases. They found a significant correlation between pollutants and daily cases as well as cumulative deaths in San Francisco. Smoke inhalation is highly toxic and appears to facilitate the transmission of disease. For this reason, Bay Area residents are recommended to wear masks that not only help prevent the spread of COVID-19, but that also mitigate against smoke inhalation.
These overlapping crises have also shed light on major systemic inequity in the area.
With inmates directly fighting the wildfires, and essential workers literally in the line of fire, it is all too clear whose bodies and lives matter to society, and whose do not.
References
Bogel-burroughs, N. (2020, October 27). California Wildfires Grow and Force Thousands to Flee. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/us/california-fires-updates.html
Meo, S. A., Abukhalaf, A. A., Alomar, A. A., & Alessa, O. M. (2020). Wildfire and COVID-19 pandemic: Effect of environmental pollution PM-2.5 and carbon monoxide on the dynamics of daily cases and deaths due to SARS-COV-2 infection in san-francisco USA. European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences, 24(19), 10286-10292. doi:10.26355/eurrev_202010_23253
Krishnakumar, P., & Kannan, S. (2020, September 15). 2020 California fires are the worst ever. Again. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-fires-damage-climate-change-analysis/
Wiener, A. (2020, September 11). The Crisis in the Skies of San Francisco. Retrieved October 31, 2020, from https://www.newyorker.com/news/california-chronicles/the-crisis-in-the-skies-of-san-francisco
Photo Credits
Essential Worker Art: @bbbarrios via @latinxwithplants
Inmate firefighter Post: @ajplus and @aapiwomenlead
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