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This year’s wildfire season in the Western U.S. doesn’t yet compare to 2020, when the El Dorado fire (above) and others made it the most destructive wildfire season of the last two decades, but the season has yet to reach its peak, according to The New York Times. (Adobe Stock)
As I write this, nearly 50 large wildfires are burning throughout the Western United States, including the Park fire north of Sacramento, which took only a week to grow into the fifth-largest in California history. Record-breaking heat across much of the West has led to “textbook fire-burning conditions,” experts told The New York Times. “Climate change has been making heat waves in the region more intense and longer.”
Convene’s deputy editor, Barbara Palmer, recently wrote about the effect of climate change on events, speaking with event sustainability expert Shawna McKinley. McKinley conducted an in-depth analysis of events in Canada that were disrupted by extreme weather in 2023. Last year’s fire season in Canada was the most destructive on record — nearly 46 million acres burned, compared to a typical year when 6 million acres are lost. Not surprisingly then, of the 72 events affected by extreme weather in McKinley’s research, 52 were attributed to fire or smoke from wildfires.
We are in wildfire season, so wildfires dominate the headlines, but a recent story in the news is not about their effect on property, their economic impact, or even about the tragic loss of life. It’s more far-reaching, and it has a connection to events. Wildfire smoke may be especially hazardous to brain health, according to a 10-year study of more than 1.2 million southern Californians.
What does this have to do with events? The findings were reported for the first time at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia and online, held July 28 – Aug. 1 — another example of how conferences are where groundbreaking research is shared not only with their participants but the rest of the world.
According to the research, exposure to wildfire smoke increases the risk of being diagnosed with dementia more than other forms of air pollution. Particulate matter from wildfires is produced at higher temperatures, contains a greater concentration of toxic chemicals, and is smaller in diameter than particulate matter from other sources, researchers said.
“With the rising global incidence of wildfires,” said Claire Sexton, Alzheimer’s Association’s senior director of scientific programs and outreach, “exposure to this type of air pollution is an increasing threat to brain health. These findings underscore the importance of enacting policies to prevent wildfires and investigating better methods to address them.”
To lower their risk, researchers said, people should have home air filtration systems, stay indoors when the air quality is unhealthy, and wear N95 masks outside when the Air Quality Index reaches 100.
In light of these findings presented at the Alzheimer’s conference, event organizers have an even heavier load to consider — their participants’ long-term as well as short-term health — when weighing whether to cancel or proceed with an event when wildfire smoke is a concern. As McKinley told Convene, the rising incidence of smoke-related disruptions has made event organizers’ decision-making more complex. “When there’s a travel ban, it’s really clear that the event is being called off,” McKinley said. But in the absence of a travel ban, organizers who McKinley spoke with, understandably, reported more anxiety around the need to make decisions to cancel when there were air-quality warnings or alerts. “It’s putting a lot of pressure on the organizers to make high-stakes decisions,” McKinley said, and it’s happening more and more often.
Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.