'Making me dizzy': Wildfire smoke chokes Seattle
STORY: Seattle’s air was choked with smoke for a second day on Thursday (October 20).
Wildfires have left Oregon and Washington state with what official data shows is the worst air quality in the nation.
Seattle residents say it’s become hard to breathe.
“It’s making me dizzy. I usually walk around a lot, I’ve been having to cut down my exercising.”
A Washington Department of Ecology spokesperson told Reuters it’s “unprecedented” for the state to have poor air quality from wildfire smoke as late in the year as October.
But Brian Harvey, Assistant Professor with the University of Washington’s Environmental and Forest Sciences, says extended fire seasons are becoming more expected around the world, as the climate warms.
“We can think of this as in some ways something that we should be expecting more of in the future, in terms of these smoky days.
And so that's where it really becomes important to think about being ready for that and having capacity to adapt to that and protect health and exposure to a lot of that smoke."
A government website shows more than two dozen wildfires are currently burning in Washington and Oregon.
Rain forecast for Friday throughout the region was expected to aid firefighting efforts and improve air quality.
However, an Oregon environment official said the extremely dry conditions over the summer means it will take a lot of moisture to put out the state’s blazes.
And the coming rain may simply cause the fires to smolder, creating more smoke.
