By Ellen Arnstein
Every spring in Peace Corps (September/October in Bolivia where I served) a haze would settle over my canyon host site smelling faintly of campfire. Enacting a traditional indigenous agricultural practice, called el chaqueo, farmers and ranchers in Eastern Bolivia were burning agricultural lands at the end of the dry season to prepare them for planting.
Last week, here in Seattle, I woke up and thought, “Oh it smells like Bolivia.” It turns out that I had not travelled in space and time, but that the smoke from fires in Oregon and northern California had blown up the coast and in from Eastern Washington and settled over the Puget Sound. Fires are a natural occurrence in Eastern Washington, generally occurring in the prairie-like ecosystems every 10 or so years. Fires in the wetter, cooler landscapes of Western Washington are much, much rarer, generally occurring on a 100-200-year cycle.
In fact, the last western Washington fire was the Yacolt Fire in 1902. As you can imagine an awful lot of trees have died since then, collecting on the ground and providing plenty of fuel for a large-scale blaze if conditions are right. With climate change, it is getting both warmer and drier in the region. US policy has centered on fire suppression instead of fuels management and controlled burning. And development pressures have caused more people to build in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) bringing more risk to our back yard, literally. In addition, now nine out of ten fires are caused by human accident; even the Yacolt Fire was started by some bobos trying to burn a wasp nest. Together these factors have created a landscape and scale where chaqueos, for example, are no longer sustainable and have increased the incidence and spread of fires in the US, Bolivia, Australia, and the Congo alike.
Not only is the loss of millions of acres of forested lands devastating in its own right but there are also millions of dollars in property loss and harmful effects on human health. Over the past two weeks EPA’s air quality index (AQI) in Seattle has hovered between 115 (Unhealthy for sensitive groups) to 275 (Very Unhealthy). In Oregon it is more likely to be classified as hazardous, hitting the 400s. This index measures the concentration of fine inhalable particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller (PM2.5). Exposure can decrease lung capacity, induce asthma attacks, and cause irregular heartbeats or (non-fatal) heart attacks.
The air is supposed to clear up in my neighborhood by the end of the week but that doesn’t mean an end to the issue. As Returned Peace Corps Volunteers for Environmental Action we must support strong national climate change legislation like the green new deal and the energy innovation and carbon dividend act. We must support proactive forest management like controlled burns and indigenous fire regimes. We must reflect on local zoning codes and suburban sprawl into forested land. And internationally, we must support programs that will improve air quality in Peace Corps host nations. As I write this, Hanoi, Vietnam has an AQI of 98; Lima, Peru has an AQI of 91; and Kathmandu, Nepal has an AQI of 77 – and that’s without forest fires.
If you want to help, Ellen suggests monetary donations can be made to:
Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation
Billy Nicholson
ATTN: Fire Relief Fund
PO Box 150
Nespelem, WA 99155
Oregon Wildfire Relief Fund
https://oregoncf.org/oregon-wildfire-relief-recovery/community-rebuilding-fund/
United Way
Those who would like to contribute to United Way’s response may donate to the local funds listed here: https://www.unitedway.org/recovery/west-coast-wildfire-relief