Wildfires are on the rise under climate change, and their smoke threatens farm workers, a study says

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — As wildfires ravaged Sonoma County’s wine country in 2020, sending ash flying and filling the air with smoke, Maria Salinas was harvesting grapes.

His saliva turned black from inhaling the toxins, until one day he was having trouble breathing and was taken to the emergency room. When he felt better, he immediately went back to work because the burn was getting worse.

“What compels us to work is necessity,” Salinas said. “We are always exposed to danger because of necessity, with fire or disaster, when the weather changes, when it is hot or cold.”

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As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires around the world, a new study shows that farmworkers are paying a heavy price for being exposed to high levels of air pollution. And in Sonoma County, the focus of the work, researchers found that programs aimed at determining when it is safe to work during wildfires are not enough to protect farm workers.

He recommended several measures to protect workers’ health, including air quality monitors in the workplace, stricter requirements for employers, emergency plans and training in different languages, post-exposure health screening and hazard pay.

Farmers “experiencing the first and hardest things that we are beginning to understand,” Max Bell Alper, executive director of the North Bay labor coalition Jobs with Justice, said Wednesday during a webinar dedicated to the research, published in July in the journal GeoHealth. “And I think in many ways it’s similar to what’s happening across the country. What we’re experiencing in California right now is happening everywhere.

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Farm workers face great pressure to work in dangerous conditions. Many are poor and do not get paid unless they work. Others who are in the country illegally are more vulnerable due to limited English language skills, lack of benefits, discrimination and exploitation. This fact makes it more difficult for them to advocate for better working conditions and basic rights.

Researchers examined data from the Glass Complex and LNU 2020 fires in northern California’s Sonoma County, an area famous for its wine. During the fires, many farm workers remained at work, often in evacuation zones deemed unsafe for the general public. Because smoke and ash can damage grapes, farmers are under increasing pressure to get workers into the fields.

Researchers looked at air quality data from one AirNow monitor, which is operated by the Environmental Protection Agency and is used to alert the public about unsafe levels, and 359 monitors from PurpleAir, which offers sensors that people can install in their homes or businesses.

From July 31 to November 6, 2020, AirNow sensors recorded 21 days of air pollution that the EPA considers unhealthy for sensitive groups and 13 days of poor air quality that is unhealthy for everyone. PurpleAir monitors found 27 days of air that the EPA considers unhealthy for sensitive groups and 16 days of toxic air for everyone.

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And on some occasions, the smoke is worse at night. That’s an important detail because some employers ask farmworkers to work at night because of cooler temperatures and less concentrated smoke, said Michael Mendez, one of the researchers and an assistant professor at the University of California-Irvine.

“Hundreds of agricultural workers have been exposed to toxic air quality from fire smoke, and it can damage their health,” he said. “There is no post-exposure monitoring of these farmers.”

Researchers also looked into the district’s Pas Pertanian program, which allows farmers and others in agriculture to go to mandatory evacuation areas to carry out essential activities such as watering or harvesting. They found that the approval process did not have clear standards or established protocols, and that the application requirements were not met. In some cases, for example, the application does not include the number of workers in the workplace and does not have a detailed location of the workplace.

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of public health sciences at the University of California-Davis who was not part of the study, said the symptoms of inhaling fire smoke — eye irritation, coughing, sneezing and difficulty breathing — can begin in just minutes. from exposure to smoke with fine particles.

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Exposure to these tiny particles, which can enter the lungs and bloodstream, has been shown to increase the risk of many health conditions such as heart and lung disease, asthma and low birth weight. The effect is enhanced when too much heat is present. Another recent study found that inhaling tiny particles from wildfire smoke can increase the risk of dementia.

Anayeli Guzman, who like Salinas was working to harvest grapes during the Sonoma County fire, remembers feeling faint and burning in her eyes and throat from the smoke and ash. But he never went to the doctor for a health checkup after the exposure.

“We don’t have that option,” Guzman, who doesn’t have health coverage, said in an interview. “If I check, I’ll lose a day of work or be left paying medical bills.”

In the webinar, Guzman said it’s “sad that vineyard owners are only worried about the grapes” that the smoke can damage, and not about the effects of the smoke on the workers.

A farmworker health survey report released in 2021 by the University of California-Merced and the National Farmworker Survey found that fewer than 1 in 5 farmworkers have employer-based health coverage.

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Hertz-Picciotto said farm workers are essential workers because the country’s food supply depends on it.

“From a moral point of view and a health point of view, it is absolutely inexcusable that the situation has worsened and that things have not been done to protect farm workers, and this paper should be very important to try to tell about this. real recommendations,” he said.

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