A veil of wildfire smoke continued to linger over many Southern California communities Friday as conflagrations tore through the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District extended its smoke advisory into Saturday, marking the fifth consecutive day of unhealthful pollution, largely due to the Eaton fire in Altadena.
Strong northeasterly winds, including gusts up to 20 mph, carried a stream of unhealthful fine particulate pollution for several dozen miles, casting a toxic haze over downtown Los Angeles, Compton and Long Beach.
The smoke plumes even reached Santa Catalina Island, the popular tourist destination, where pollution reached hazardous concentrations at times, according to satellite imagery and air quality data.
The winds were expected to shift directions Friday afternoon, pushing pollution inland for up to 24 hours. Santa Ana winds are expected to return Saturday afternoon, driving smoke over much of Los Angeles County again.
Smoke forecast
0–3 micrograms per cubic meter
3–25
25–63
Jan. 10, 10 p.m.
Jan. 11, 10 a.m.
Jan. 11, 10 p.m.
“Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties have been relatively spared from this event, but it looks like they’re going to get some smoke,” said Scott Epstein, air quality assessment manager for the local air district. “We don’t think it’s going to be super intense, but it could be unhealthy for sensitive groups.
“It’s a bit hard for us to kind of project beyond there, because so much depends on the actual emissions from the fire and what the containment efforts are going to look like.”
Across Southern California, the number of evacuees from the fire zones may be rivaled by crowds of Angelenos whose homes were not in mandatory evacuation areas but who left their neighborhoods or the L.A. area altogether to avoid dangerous air quality levels.
The issue became so widespread that the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks set up an “air quality relief center” at the Alpine Recreation Center in Chinatown. The building, advertised as a place where people could “keep safe and healthy,” was set up as a daytime refuge for residents whose homes were intact but who wanted cleaner air to breathe.
Many people went farther out of the city, finding shelter in friends’ homes in beach cities away from the smoke or leaving for the desert or another part of the state.
Out of an abundance of caution, Nayana Estanislau decamped from her West Hollywood apartment on Tuesday for San Diego with her dog after witnessing a small and short-lived brush fire in the hills above Sunset Boulevard. The next evening, the Sunset fire by Runyon Canyon prompted evacuations in parts of adjacent Hollywood.
Estanislau’s neighborhood, on Sweetzer Avenue, was never in an evacuation warning or mandatory evacuation zone, but she stayed in San Diego as air quality levels fluctuate — at times reaching harmful concentrations — in the area.
“I’m so glad I listened to my intuition,” said Estanislau, who works as a stylist.
Mike Pourahmadi, a resident of Echo Park, said he also left town midweek despite his apartment being safe and far from the Eaton, Palisades, Hurst and other fires.
“I have asthma, so I knew I needed to look after myself,” said Pourahmadi, who went to stay with a friend in Palm Springs. “The air is a lot better here and I like coming here when I can, anyway.”
Culver City resident Paul McCarthy and his 6-year-old son, Finn, had braved smoke from nearby wildfires. McCarthy, who has asthma, had recently been sick.
He tried to guard against the smoke by wearing a KN-95 mask outdoors and running two air purifiers inside his condo to try to filter out the smoke. But he could feel some discomfort in his chest that he worried was from smoke exposure.
“I’m wondering whether that [cold] is still lingering, or whether I’m feeling the effects of the smoke,” he said.
“I’ve been here 16 years, and this is an absolutely unprecedented event, the fact that we’ve lost entire neighborhoods in the Palisades and Altadena. My head is still not getting around that. We’re still in fight-or-flight, survival mode.”
On Thursday, a friend sent him supplies to build a DIY air purifier with box fan and HEPA filters, given that many stores quickly sold out of air purifiers. Although the makeshift air purifier helped, the next day McCarthy packed up his car and decided to leave for Palm Springs for the weekend.
“This is not going anywhere,” McCarthy said. “This air quality is going to be like this for a long time. I think unless we get some kind of weather event that really tries to clean this out, it’s going to be weeks.”
Los Angeles Unified School District remained closed on Friday due to the poor air quality.
“Winds are transporting particulate matter, smoke and ashes across the entire district,” Supt. Alberto Carvalho said at a Thursday evening briefing. “We celebrate when the winds subside because that allows more effective combating of fires.”
But when the winds subside, smoke often lingers over certain communities. When the winds pick up, the fires explode, creating more smoke.
The air district’s governing board convened Friday, lamenting the widespread destruction from the wildfires and the persisting danger from heavy smoke.
“It’s going to require all of us to lean in and be present and provide immediate support to those impacted … given its impact on air quality for an indeterminate amount of time,” said Holly Mitchell, a Los Angeles County supervisor and air district governing board member. “There are no words to describe what we’re experiencing.”
The air district warned residents not to burn wood in fireplaces, which could exacerbate levels further. Due to widespread power outages, however, the agency suspended rules for emergency diesel- and gas-powered generators.
