What a horrible weekend it has been down here in the Los Angeles. Our eyes have been watering, our throats burning and there's headaches galore being handed out thanks to all the ember and smoke choking us, forcing everyone to stay indoors when we all should have been at the beach enjoying the summertime temperatures in November. We're fortunate enough to have an industrial strength air purifier in the house, but it got us thinking about how to battle air pollution from entering into your home during these trying times...
[Photo: Robert Lachman / Los Angeles Times]
First off, here's some common sense tips to consider following the next few days before an onshore flow comes in to ease these Santa Ana conditions and improve air quality inside and out:
Some other tips from Los Angeles County officials to help cope with bad air:
- Avoid unnecessary outdoor activity.
- Do not use fireplaces, candles and vacuums.
- When indoors, keep windows and doors closed. Air conditioners can remove particles from the air, but if residents do not have an air-conditioning unit and are getting too hot, they should consider going somewhere with air conditioning. The county warns residents not to use air conditioners that draw in air only from the outside and do not have a recirculating option.
Areas directly impacted today include:
- Corona/Norco Area;
- Chino Hills area
- Pomona/Walnut Valley
- Orange County
- San Fernando Valley
- portions of the San Gabriel Mountains near the Sayre Fire
- portions of the Santa Clarita Valley
- portions of Los Angeles County, including downtown, coastal areas, the Long Beach area and the west and south San Gabriel Valley.
For more tips on avoiding health impacts from the smoke, see http://www.aqmd.gov/pubinfo/factsheets.htm.
Look to investing in a serious air purifier for any room you spend any extended time within, most notably the bedroom. We can't recommend the IQAir HealthPro Plus enough; as my girlfriend put it this weekend as she suffered each time she stepped outside, "...that machine changed my life. If it broke tomorrow, I'd buy a new one." We think an additional air purifier in our bedroom would help (we move the IQAir around), but wished they'd design more better looking devices like this one that doubles up as a trash can.
Seal your windows...this prevents not only pollution, but also drafts from blowing in. Our friends at AT Chicago did a great list of
5 Ways to Insulate Your Windows for Winter to refer to.
Replace your filters and look/cover for draft sources coming into the home.
Look to add a humidifier, which helps weigh down offending particles from reaching your sensitive air passages. Maxwell recommends the Bionaire Ultrasonic Personal Humidifier.
If you find yourself needing to vacuum, remember that a true HEPA vac is the only one advisable to use if you're sensitive to allergies. Our favourite (and one we don't own sadly) is the Miele Callisto model, which puts out zero particles and leaves your interior air cleaner, rather than dirtier, compared to a typical vac.
A fairly affordable air quality aid is adding a AC/furnace filter if you have to use a centralized air conditioner. It's hot out there, and it's bad enough to be suffering poor air quality alongside sitting inside a hot house. These affordable filters help remove some of the allergens and particles that enter the home via the ducts.
Close your chimneys. Polluted air can enter easily via the chimney. We've seen embers float down before in past fires.
Add some household plants...they're natures air purifier and arguably improve the decor with some natural colour! Here are the 10 Best Plants for Apartments you might want to consider.
Holy Cow! We got some smoke from the Chiapas fires a few years back (as well as a few migrating parrots), but nothing like that. Hope this comes under control soon.
view whytephoenix's profile
That IQAir HealthPro Plus is HUGE! Where do you put it?
view quiltmaster's profile
I live in Hollywood where the air quality has been horrible all weekend and while I think offering suggestions for improving the air quality in your home is a great idea and a huge help, I can't help but be disappointed at AT L.A. for complaining about not being able to go to the beach on this warm weekend when so many people have lost their homes due to these fires. Dealing with bad air quality and restricting activity is a small price to pay compared with losing your home right before the holidays.
view littledumpling's profile
littledumpling: as someone whose own mom's house was in the danger zone (and who had to evacuate the last rounds of fires in the SFV), I wasn't trying to make light of the situation, only trying to frame it within the scope of what we're normally thinking about on weekends here in LA when the weather warms up as Angelenos. Our hearts go out to anyone who lost their homes this past weekend...they're surely concerned with greater things than reading our site right now.
view gregory's profile
My mom lives in Rowland Heights area, a city down from the flames, and would really appreciate this page...thanks!
view jenniejenjen's profile
I understand Gregory. Point taken. Blog on!
view littledumpling's profile
Am I being dense? Why shouldn't you use your vacuum when there's poor air quality?
view Mooncalf's profile
Any suggestions for an air purifier that won't eat my savings? I'll buy a top-notch one when I have money...
view Stiletto's profile
Man, Australia gets this every summer (hot, dry, windy - great combo!) - we're just coming up to it, so time to get ready for smoke, itchy eyes, haze, coughing, and the occasional inability to breathe... we get really bad bushfires. When they were doing backburning last weekend, we were getting smoke haze for days, including ash floating over on to our back deck! (...I don't know, do you guys have backburning? Eucalyptus, which is endemic here, actually needs fire to germinate - they germinate seeds for commercial sale in POTTERY KILNS - but I'm guessing Southern Californian vegetation might be different?)
Aaaanyway. I feel for you guys! Hope the fires go out soon!
view ryttu3k's profile
ryttu3k: Eucalyptus is prolific in SoCal and is one of the primary sources for causing such horrific burns. Of course the winds are the prime culprit, but much of the vegetation it blows fire into are very high in oil content (such as Eucalyptus trees and Creosote bush -- both of which can literally explode when touched with flames). It is SO HARD to watch people's hard work, possessions, and lives decimated in a matter of minutes. Firefighters here are courageous to face this demon again and again.
view ldevere's profile
Huh, I can see how that'd be a problem - eucalyptus in its natural environment, ie. here, isn't a problem as it's pretty much self-regulating and people generally use fireproof materials if they're living near large quantities of eucalyptus...
We normally keep them tamed down by doing controlled burns (backburning) every year, which reduces the area of unburnt, dry stuff - do you do that as well? We have an EXCELLENT volunteer firefighter service, too. If you're backburning and have good volunteer services, I can't understand why your fires are so severe, though! We get fire damage, but it's usually not in the hundreds of houses destroyed...
I'm really sorry if this comes across badly - I just can't figure out why you guys are so badly affected by these fires!
view ryttu3k's profile
This past weekend the smoke around downtown LA was terrible.
view Mr. Dangerous's profile
ryttu3k - SoCal is home to more than 23 million people - if I'm not mistaken that's actually more people than there are in all of Australia. Logically, when an area is so tightly packed with people, more people will be affected than when similar disasters occur in less populous areas.
Also, the high population has spread eastward, where it's even drier and more fire-prone. We have good firefighters (pro and volunteer), but when one fire breaks out, another breaks out somewhere else. Five years ago when a huge fire broke out in San Diego County, emergency services couldn't send firefighters because they'd already been sent to fight another fire more than 100 miles away.
Wildfires are just plain bad news anywhere, but in such population-dense areas they're going to do more damage.
view Stiletto's profile