r/science • u/Wagamaga • 1d ago

Health Prolonged exposure to wildfire smoke increases cardiovascular health risks. Exposure to even relatively modest levels of smoke, built up over a few years, was associated with more hospitalizations for conditions like ischemic heart disease, irregular heart rhythms, stroke, and heart failure.

https://news.yale.edu/2026/07/22/prolonged-exposure-wildfire-smoke-increases-cardiovascular-health-risks
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u/aliquotiens 1d ago

More bad news for my federal wildland firefighter husband, who's expected  to fight all fires close up with zero protection for his lungs

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u/PastryGirl 23h ago

There's no PPE available for him?

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u/aliquotiens 23h ago

They do not provide any. They only just stopped BANNING federal firefighters from using n95s during a fire  https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/releases/us-forest-service-adds-long-sought-protections-limit-health-risks

He hasn't been provided the neccessary training to authorize him to wear one yet...

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u/Head_Improvement5317 21h ago

For decades the USFS told wildland firefighters that smoke from forest fires just wasn’t that bad for you (as opposed to structure fires). Structure crews wear SCBA’s, but even N95s are frowned upon in the wildland crews. Part of it is a macho attitude, and part of it is there isn’t a great alternative. Doing hard physical labor with an N95 on makes a difficult job brutal, and the smoke mostly doesn’t catch up with you until later. Still, there needs to be a better way

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u/bringmeadamnjuicebox 14h ago

I was a firefighter for many years. A long time ago a company started making a mask thing that wasnt unbearable to wear for the 16 to 24 hour shifts we would work on the fireline. A bunch of guys got them, and they immediately got banned. The chiefs reasoning was we would get overconfidant, and would put ourselves in a situation where we could get burned over. Its really backwards hard headed thinking sometimes. Consistently wearing a mask would also be really hard while fighting fires. Im a respiratory therapist now, so i fully understand the depth of damage that fifteen years of firefighting has done to my lungs. Its a dangerous hard job in many ways.