Oregon’s air quality is so hazardous that no one knows what it means for health | Hacker News Reader

Oregon’s air quality is so hazardous that no one knows what it means for health

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18 pointsd4mi3n25 comments

This one came to me via a friend. Western OR and parts of CA clocked around 700ppm over the weekend, which goes well beyond the EPA’s air quality scale that tops out at 500ppm (“hazardous”).

How are people dealing with this? I’m near SF where levels have been around 200 ~ 250ppm and it’s been just miserable—and I have respirators and air purifiers handy!

Parts of Sydney topped 2500 back in our last summer bushfires. That was pretty awful...

I have several large HEPA filters running 100% of the time in my home. They work great. When it's really bad, I moisten the prefilter a little to grab more material. If that is not enough, saline solution can be used to irrigate the sinuses and eye drops to flush the eyes.

Maybe this is another good reason to wear a mask!

Particulate matter in wood smoke is supposedly around 0.4–0.7 μm which which is a little bigger than a SARS-Cov2 virus particle at 0.1 μm so an N95 mask should handle both (not sure about paper surgical masks, almost certainly better than nothing for wood smoke).

AFAIK, the mechanism of action of paper surgical masks, and cloth masks, is not by catching particles of that size, but primarily by catching larger droplets and by disrupting forward airflow on exhalation. So their usefulness for smoke would seem questionable.

Do you have an air quality monitor to see how effective your air filter is? Mine with the windows closed is able to filter the air to clean levels

I’m personally shocked that none of the major smart thermostat vendors include anything like this. I’d love my ecobee to tell me if the air I’m breathing is healthy, as well as what temp it is...

I have yet to make such an investment as good air monitors are fairly expensive, but I’m hoping to get a few indoor monitors from Purple Air (~$200 USD).

What do you folks use?

I use something like this handheld air quality monitor. It's been close enough and useful enough to figure out how well my filter is working:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000312301074.html?spm=a2g0o...

You can build your own air quality sensor with our instructions. Our sensor uses the same PM sensor like in the purple air. You can build it for <USD 20.

https://www.airgradient.com/diy/

BTW: Our main product is an air quality monitoring service specifically designed for schools. Since we are just starting, I would love to talk to parents, teachers etc. from schools that want to monitor their air quality better. Please contact me if you are interested to talk!

also a cheap box fan and 20x20x1 merv 11+ rating filter should work wonders.

PMS5003

Title is somewhat misleading as we have seen air quality this bad in China. The US embassy in Beijing has recorded AQI > 700 in 2013 for example.

https://www.sciencealert.com/sydney-air-soars-to-12-times-ha...

2,552 here last bushfire season... :-/

When the AQI at the US embassy first went over 500 in 2010, a default case in their code caused it to be described as "crazy bad":

https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/19/beijing-air-crazy-bad/

Officially, anything above 500 is now simply "beyond index". But "crazy bad" seems about right.

Has there been any research into health impacts of people exposed to those conditions? I’d love to read some if anyone knows of any.

Does anyone know how long wildfire season normally lasts in OR/CA?

“peak wildfire season” for CA is typically cited as May through October. But there are wildfires outside of that time, even in normal years.

this time around? until the marxists take over.

it really does seem that anyone who offers a valid solution to the problem gets labeled a "Marxist" because of "Doing literally anything? Who's going to pay for it???" kneejerk hysteria.

No, is because the antifa-blm marxist are setting the fires. Direct and coordinated arson. Time to pay attention.

Isn't it fun to say things when you don't justify them? Let me try..

Stalin is back! running around starting fires with his gender reveal parties! Wake up sheeple.

Leaks revealed famous world reviled Marxists Ellen Denegeneres and George Bush conspiring to send funds to sleeper cell deep state arsonists! Is the Bureau of Land Management planning to abort your children??? Watch this Tim Pool video, all the evidence is there!

It's even worse when layered on top of a respiratory pandemic.

And the main problem driving Oregon’s wildfires is a lack of forest management leading to dense fuel buildup: https://katu.com/news/on-your-side/lack-of-forest-management...

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