Wildfire Smoke Is Always Toxic. LA’s Is Even Worse.

Rachel Wald always has a bit of a cold. That’s life when you have two kids younger than 5, she says. You’re always a little sick. But it wasn’t until after Wald and her family voluntarily fled the fires in Los Angeles that she realized the cough, sore throat, and itchy eyes she couldn’t shake were being exacerbated by the fires plaguing the city. “I don’t think I was really recognizing how much of it was not the cold, but the smoke,” she said.

Wald, who is a director at a health and environment center at the University of Southern California, is among the lucky ones. Her neighborhood in central L.A. was never directly threatened. Her house is intact; her children, husband, and all they own are safe. Nevertheless, Wald, like millions of other Angelenos, can’t escape the health effects of the blazes. Experts expect those impacts to linger.