Wildfire Smoke Ready Week 2022: Nothing Trivial about preparing for smoke

By Amy Cilimburg and Mary Sullivan
For a week in July we were out in our community, with our partners, for our 2nd annual Wildfire Smoke Ready Week, spreading the word about what we can all do to stay healthy when smoke rolls into our valleys. This year, our cool, wet start to summer means we’ve yet to see smoke from local fires, but with our geography, smoke from afar makes its way into our airshed. Our summer, regionally, is also heating up and drying out fast. With whiffs of wildfire smoke this week, now is the perfect time to get ready.

This post follows an earlier piece in the Missoula Current series (here) - with Trivia! 

Usually community members are the ones asking us the questions this week - and thanks to all we’ve learned over the past few years, we’ve plenty of answers. This year, we thought it would be fun for us to ask you the questions. This past Wednesday at Imagine Nation Brewing, we tested our community’s knowledge of all things smoke-related at our first-ever Wildfire Smoke Trivia Night. The "Hotter Every Year" team sneaked out the win for some great prizes (INB beer + filters). The "Smoldering Ash Holes" won ice cream for the best team name!

Here are a few of the questions that stumped the crowd - Can you guess correctly? (Answers at end). 

1. It's important to check the air quality in your area! What color is used to indicate the health category "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" on air monitoring websites?
2. As of 2021, what percentage of properties in Montana are at risk from wildfires?
3. Your body has a lot of natural defenses to protect you from pollutants. But fine particles in smoke can bypass many of these defenses. What are the hair-like projections that line your lungs and help move microbes and pollutants out of your airways?
4. What came first? The Smokey Bear campaign or a black bear cub rescued from a wildfire and named "Smokey" by his rescuers?
5. This one's a two-fer! To effectively use your home central air handler or furnace to clean your indoor air, you'll want to install an efficient filter and decouple the _________ from the __________ (Note: Make sure your system can operate with a better filter, first!)

If those questions left you feeling unsure about your smoke-smarts (or feeling like high school human biology class might as well be the ancient past), fear not! It’s never too late to become an expert! Read on and click through the links for more. You too can dazzle your friends at your next cocktail party or BBQ, and you’ll feel confident you know what to do if and when the smoke descends.  

If you know Missoula County Air Quality Specialist Sarah Coefield, you know she’s a woman of many, many words, and this week she’s written five(!) brief articles with what you need to know to prepare for smoke. We have them all in one place - visit WildfireSmokeReadyWeek.org for these great posts: 

• Wildfire Smoke Basics​
• Cleaning the air in your home
• Using your home HVAC system to clean the air
• Cleaning the air in commercial spaces
• Summer activities, heat and smoke

And to keep with the Q&A theme, we have these simple tips:

Q: How do I know how bad the air is?
A: Bookmark todaysair.mt.gov, check it, and learn the air quality rules of thumb. You can also visit fire.airnow.gov to see smoke data across the country. 

Q: What’s the best way to create clean indoor air when it’s smoky outside?
A: Purchase a HEPA portable air cleaner (PAC) or build a DIY fan + filter combo 

Q: Can I go outside when it’s smoky?
A: Reduce time and avoid intense physical activity outside. 

Q: What else can I do to help myself and others when it’s smoky?
A: Check in on your friends and neighbors and support our community. 

​This last Q&A is critical. Smoke can have real mental health impacts, as well as physical. And with a longer, more severe wildfire smoke season thanks to climate change, there’s the double whammy of worry. When we feel overwhelmed it can help to look for ways to be a part of community efforts. This summer we encourage you to:

• Check in on neighbors who might need information or help getting filters. Share our montanawildfiresmoke.org website, or you can even print and share our handy Wildfire Smoke Ready flyer.
• Support community efforts to get clean air to all. Once again, Climate Smart will offer as many box fan/filters or HEPA PACs to vulnerable members of our community as we can. We welcome donations of any size so we have the funds to order more fans and filters. It’s easy to make a tax-deductible donation here.
• By getting wildfire smoke ready and building our community’s resilience to the climate impacts that are already here and coming, we can help manage the unavoidable. But there’s also a lot we must do to avoid the unmanageable. To do this, we need our elected officials at all levels - let your elected representatives know that taking bold action to reduce our contribution to the climate crisis should be a priority and consider what you can do to elect more climate leaders. 

Wildfire Smoke Ready Week is brought to you by Missoula City-County Health Department, Climate Smart Missoula, United Way of Missoula County, Missoula County Sustainability, Missoula County Office of Emergency Management, and Missoula County Fire Protection Association.. We are grateful to everyone who is a a part of Wildfire Smoke Ready Week and this community. 

Answers: 

1. Orange!
2. 29% of properties in Montana are at risk from wildfires, the highest percentage in the U.S.
3. Cilia
4. The campaign came first. The cub wasn't rescued until 1950 and was then named after the campaign bear.
5. fan/thermostat (otherwise it won't run consistently!)