Wildfire Smoke Contaminating Air & Water

The damage caused by both the Plaskett and the timber fires could be extensive and we can see the burned trees and the brush but it's difficult to determine the contamination to the air and the water. Air quality experts say wildfire smoke can travel more than 1,000 miles carrying particulate matter, toxic gases and other pollutants. We're joined now by environmental health and wellness expert Helen Crestoni. Good morning, thank you for joining us. Good morning, I'm so glad to be here. Pretty alarming when we hear that 1,000 mile mark because we're thinking oh that's way down in Monterey County but that could certainly be impacting us. We know we can when we see and smell easily smell smoke in the air but talk about that 1,000 mile distance. How does it impact our health? What should we look for that to see if we're impacted? So first of all everybody should really be paying attention to their AQI index in their area and anything that's 100 or orange or higher you really need to be careful about that. So if the AQI report is orange which is 100 you have to be careful it's unhealthy for sensitive groups. Then when you get over 150 it's getting really bad for you and the challenge with these small particulate matters anything under PM 2.5 can enter our bloodstream that's why it's very dangerous and so we don't want to be breathing any of this stuff. Yeah I mean I'm pretty sensitive to smells and I can tell sometimes if there's not a fire in the area I'll start getting headaches and I know and then I start looking at okay that could be the air quality. I know we have those indexes on our phone which is helpful but what other things should we be looking at and thinking about and how our bodies are reacting to determine whether or not we should be outside and or staying inside? I think it's really important there's a couple things that are very important people should do so it's indoor air can actually be 100 times more contaminated than outdoor air because the smoke gets trapped in our homes. So it's very important that you make sure your HVAC systems are set to recirculatory and they're not bringing in that contaminated smoke from outdoors. Then it's also a very good idea to have a really good quality air purifier with an ultra HEPA filter and a carbon filter like air doctor there's many out there and I like to suggest that people have a safe room in their house especially if you're suffering if you're getting headaches if you don't feel good if you have anxiety having issues breathing create a safe room in your home and also things that people don't think about you don't want to be vacuuming during a fire episode because you're just kicking up all those contaminants and also it's a very good idea to continuously be cleaning the surfaces inside your home. That's good advice talk about the water too because there's risk to tap water even if you're not in the fire zone or the evacuation area what should we do there to make sure we're safe? Yeah I mean water is very interesting and you have all this contaminant water getting into our water systems from fires long past and so at home you really want to make sure that you're drinking and you're cooking with a good four stage reverse osmosis water purifier. There are a lot of great options for you you can get like a counter top system from a company like aqua true there's many out there so you take your tap water you put it through four stage reverse osmosis and then you're going to have really safe water for you and your family. If your area is in a under a boil notice and a lot of times during fire events they put communities under a fire notice it's important that you boil and then you purify that's what I recommend. Boy two steps all right boil it and purify it okay yeah thank you so much uh Helen Crestoni thank you for that information and um for your advice we appreciate it. My pleasure thank you so much stay safe everybody. Thank you you too all right and