Fleeing smoke and fire: Kansas native returns home
It was her 34th birthday last Tuesday when she pulled into her mom’s driveway and began crying. Elle Connelly had just made the more than 1,700-mile drive from Portland, Oregon to Wichita, Kansas where she hoped she would be safe from the wildfires and smoke currently ravaging her home.
The native Kansan and Spanish school teacher arrived with her roommate and her dog, a brown mutt named Cholula, and had spent three days driving from Oregon. In a strange shift of pace, she was greeted by her mother with a birthday cake near midnight, ensuring this holiday would not pass unmarked. But the guilt and fear Connelly feels stays with her.
“We are living in Portland, so we didn’t lose our homes, and we have the finances and the type of job that we’re able to leave, which is just not the case for a lot of people,” Connelly said. “Coming from that place and being able to get out, it feels a little unfair...My mom said ‘Come stay at the cabin,’ but it was still a hellish journey.”
Since early September, weeks of wildfires on the West Coast have killed at least 34, dozens more are missing and hundreds of thousands have been ordered to evacuate. Between California, Washington and Oregon, nearly five million acres have been burned, about the size of the state of New Jersey, in a record-setting problem scientists say are made worse by climate change, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
“And the smoke is still here,” Connelly said. “It’s really wild to see the smoke here in Kansas.”
Currently, Kansas is in a smoke plume and several parts of the state are experiencing moderate air quality concerns. Air quality across the nation is updated regularly on the U.S. Fire and Smoke Map.
Friday the Kansas Department of Health and Environment released a statement about air quality impacts. While most of the smoke is higher in the atmosphere, there is smoke at the surface impacting air quality, and could potentially continue to be seen as long as there are wildfires in the west.
An estimated 500,000 people in Oregon have been told to evacuate because of the wildfires, according to the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. This is almost 12% of the state’s total population.
“It’s not just a part of the state or one town, it’s everyone,” Connelly said. “Everyone is affected by it. Nobody can get out...With climate change, this is our reality. If we don’t face it, we’ll continue to be victims.”
While climate change rages on the coasts and intensifies the wildfires in the West and hurricanes in the east, there are already markers that climate change is affecting Kansas. Primarily, it will appear in extreme heat and water stress, according to an analysis by Four Twenty Seven, a climate risk data firm.
Nearly three-fourths of Americans believe climate change is happening, according to Yale Climate Change Communication. While 61% believe climate will harm people in the U.S., only 43% think they will be personally affected. As a state, Kansas falls below the national average by at least five percentage points on each of these questions.
Connelly moved to Oregon in 2009 and then Portland in 2014 and has noticed that the wildfires have gotten worse and worse each year. Then, about a week and a half ago, Connelly said it started with a warning that a windstorm was coming. Then the power went out.
Over the next week, a haze of wildfire smoke would blanket the city, causing the air quality to plummet. Connelly remembers having a headache, as did everyone around her, and not being able to see more than 100 feet in front of her.
“You can’t go outside,” Connelly said. “Those are the conditions of the city right now. We had to reinforce all our windows. When you open the door to let the dog out, you’re gasping for breath.”
Smoke can cause health problems, in both healthy individuals and those with pre-existing conditions and the very old and very young, according to KDHE. The department recommended that Kansans with respiratory or heart-related illnesses, including those experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, should stay indoors.
They also recommended that everyone should limit strenuous outdoor exercise, drink lots of water and contact their doctor if they have symptoms such as chest pain, chest tightness, shortness of breath or severe fatigue.
As the fires burn, they release pollutants that hurt air quality, and studies have shown that the negative effects of wildfire smoke don’t always go away when the sky clears.
For those who wish to help people affected by the wildfires, Charity Navigator has compiled a list of trustworthy groups who are providing aid.
This story was originally published September 21, 2020 at 5:01 AM.
