Kind: captions
Language: en
Wildfire smoke is loaded with harmful
particles like charred plant matter
incinerated materials and noxious gases
but it's also carrying stuff that's
alive thousands of teeny tiny
microorganisms like bacteria and fungi
but why doesn't the heat from a wildfire
kill all these
microorganisms well not all parts of a
wildfire are hot when we look at fire on
the scale of a microorganism there are
likely pockets of cold air um areas that
are not being burned at all in those
tiny pockets of cooler air
microorganisms can catch rides on bits
of carbon or water vapor rise High into
the atmosphere and travel long distances
and some could potentially infect humans
some health experts are already noticing
a concerning relationship between
Wildfire smoke exposure and rates of
infection one study in California found
an uptick in Funko infections after
wildfires within a 200m radius of
hospitals and climate change is making
wildfires more intense and more
impactful compared to the yearly average
in the 1970s the average Wildfire season
in the US is now 105 days longer or in
six times the number of acres and has
three times as many large fires fires
are affected by dry conditions and
warmer conditions climate change is
causing more of those extremes more
extreme conditions more extreme
wildfires they go together Hand by hand
though there are still many unknowns
risk is growing for more people we would
expect that we're all just going to
become Exposed on a regular basis we'd
have to look out for that in places that
we wouldn't normally be on the lookout