In How Breathing in Wildfire Smoke Affects the body written by Sarah Gibbens and Amy McKeever, we are told about the hardships Californians and their state neighbors are facing with the massive wildfires going on in their region. Because of the longevity of the fire they have not been able to breathe properly while being outside of their homes for the past month.

We are made aware of the fact that 15 of the 20 wildfires California has had have happened during the last 20 years. Research from the 2015 California wildfire has shown that the smoke from the wildfires are linked to cardiovascular issues and problems with blood flow to the brain. Along with those effects are respiratory illnesses or the worsening of them, and affects to your lungs, kidneys, and liver from inflammation.

Another thing we are made aware of is the fact that not everything in the smoke is just burnt twigs and leaves- so that is not all they are breathing. The massive fires are now eating parts of the city and are burning buildings to the ground. So they aren’t just inhaling parts of trees, they are now inhaling whatever burns in those buildings- plastic, chemicals, construction adhesive, etc.

The last important note is the added danger with Covid-19 being in full effect. The smoke from the fire causes respiratory illness- we know this, and this illness can compromise your immune system. If your immune system can’t fight the viruses that come into your body, you will be more vulnerable to Covid-19.

Throughout the article we learn about how the Hoopa Valley Reservation, located in California, is feeling about the wildfire that occurred in July. Greg Moon, the “Hoopa’s fire chief and its pandemic team leader,” was already on edge because of Covid seeing as they were a high-risk community with lots of sick and elderly people. Now, with the fires, the weight on him had doubled. Because the fire was massive and his tribe only has a 25 person fire team, he had to ask for “help from federal wildland rangers and other tribal firefighters.” Greg and his tribe also linked the new COVID virus to when Europiens first arrived- when they brought smallpox, measles, etc. So, because they’ve never been exposed to this virus before, they think it’ll hit them harder and cause as much devastation as when we were first exposed to those new pathogens and viruses. They were also dreading the spread of the virus because a “ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found Native Americans and Alaskans were 3.5 times more likely than whites to test positive for the coronavirus.” This fact made the Hoopa reservation and others hold back a little on how much people they would send out to tend to the fires.

In this article we explore the negative effects of the Red Salmon Complex Fire on the Karuk tribe and how we can easily stop mega-fires. Federal Land agencies are helping the tribe by making fire-lines- but that means that they are bulldozing sacred lands, killing rare plants, and the tribe’s people are moving from location to location to stay out of the way. This is particularly bad because with COVID present the Karuk people increase the risk of the virus spreading. Also, the land they “visit for solitude, prayer and carrying out cultural burning has become a space of turmoil, sorrow and trauma,” because of the bulldozed fire-lines. The Karuk tribe explains that prescribed burning should be allowed because the cost of fighting fires will go down and the tribe will not have to keep trying to get their land back together over and over again. They also tell us that they “will continue to fight for our Indigenous rights and tribal sovereignty to be taken seriously.”

In A flammable planet: Fire finds its place in Earth History by Kate Zalzal, we look into fire history and the ways it has shaped the Earth. Scientists have found evidence of the oldest wildfire that dates back to 420-million years ago. The evidence was found in a rhyniophyta- a “leafless plant from the Silurian Period” which was preserved in the remains of a charred English siltstone. From looking at fire throughout geologic history, scientists have evidence that fire is mainly “influenced by the atmosphere, plant evolution and changing climates.” We look at the way fire shaped the earth through oxygen. It is thought that fire is responsible for expanding life itself because of the way it maintains the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. Throughout history, fire has been able to support different types of life and ecosystems because of the way they change the oxygen levels. Today, 40% of land surface is thought to be made up of fire-prone ecosystems.