Orange County Register

Photo by Steve Zylius, The Orange County Register

Staying indoors during wildfires doesn’t necessarily protect you from the health risks of inhaling smoke, according to a USC study announced this week.

Smoke particles from wildfires can penetrate indoor structures more easily than particles from vehicle emissions, according to USC.

And if you don’t have air conditioning or a system to recirculate filtered indoor air, you could be breathing a dangerous mix of chemicals that your body absorbs more easily than other pollutants.

“If the house starts becoming uncomfortable and you start sensing the smell of smoke in the house, the best idea would be to find some other indoor environment,” said one of the study’s authors, Constantinos Sioutas, a USC Viterbi School of Engineering air pollution specialist and co-director of the Southern California Particle Center. “Go to a mall.”

In the study, researchers from USC, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the National Institutes of Health and the Environment of the Netherlands analyzed the particular matter gathered from the fires in Southern California during the fall of 2007. It is expected to be published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

“More aggressive measures to avoid smoke seem to deserve study, including distribution of masks and evacuation to air-conditioned environments,” Sioutas said.

The results of the study confirm an earlier analysis of particles from October 2003 California wildfires, conducted by Sioutas and colleagues from USC and UCLA.

Related links:

Smoke update: Kaiser calling patients with asthma

Air quality still bad Monday

COMPLETE FIRE COVERAGE

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