Smoke From Wildfires Is Killing Hundreds of Thousands of People
And fires like the ones raging in Indonesia can cross mountains and oceans, spreading lung-clogging particles and toxic chemicals.
Dr. Praveen Buddiga knew he would find a packed waiting room when he arrived at his office that warm September day in California’s Central Valley. White flakes drifted from the sky, as if he were inside a snow globe.
The Rough Fire, a 152,000-acre blaze sparked by lightning in the Sequoia National Forest, was lofting thick smoke, soot, and ash into the air—and into the lungs of Buddiga’s patients 35 miles away, in Fresno.
As an allergist, Buddiga knows that wildfires pose a serious, sometimes lethal, threat to people’s health, particularly for those with asthma or heart disease.
“Older [patients] made the universal choking sign—you know, hands around the throat,” Buddiga says. “Younger ones just pointed to their chests. The Rough Fire
