What Clean Air Means to a Mom in Wildfire Season

We spoke with?Adrienne Graf, the mother of two children who attend school in?the?Gold Trail Union School District, in Placerville, Calif., about the impact of air quality on?K-12?education. The recent Caldor fire, which burned 221,835 acres, filled local schools with smoke and ash. As a mother and active school district advocate, she has witnessed firsthand the effects of this devastation on children’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being.??

Why is air quality a concern in your school district??

Our school district is in a relatively rural community in the Sierra Foothills. The Sierra Nevada mountains to our east and the Central Valley to our west create wind and weather patterns that disperse smoke from surrounding wildfires throughout the state to our community. Over the past?three?years, we have had to endure poor air quality from devastating fires throughout our state that set new precedents of destruction each?year.?

The most recent devastating Caldor fire burned 221,835 acres and was ignited approximately 30 miles from our?elementary?school on Aug.?14, 2021.?The following week, the fire exploded and shrouded the skies in smoke and ash.?

Have you seen any health effects of poor air quality on your child? If so, what are they??

For at least seven weeks?during the worst of the fire season,?we were dealing with?hazardous?AQI levels. For?a while, the AQI was close to 1,000 at Gold Trail (fourth through eighth?grade) and in the mid 600s at the Sutter’s Mill campus (preschool?through third grade). During this time, children would come home smelling like a campfire in their hair. Both teachers and students suffered from headaches, coughing fits, burning eyes, and lungs. Children couldn’t play outside during recess or eat lunch outside due to the hazardous air. Many parents felt despair and helplessness dropping their children off at school every day.??

It’s heartbreaking as a parent to tuck your little one into bed at night and hear them say, “It hurts my chest when I breathe [deeply],” (as my son did) knowing that his lungs have been damaged from the effects of breathing smoke, ash, and VOCs. My daughter had an incessant cough for weeks.?

As an institution invested in children’s safety and learning, having fresh, pure air is paramount.?The lack of outdoor recess time has its own negative impact (children need physical activity and outdoor playtime to help them focus?in?the classroom). The lack of wiggle time and subsequent detriment of kids’ ability to focus must have had an impact on their learning. Canceled sports practices (they were just rebooting after a year and a half!) had an untold and unmeasurable effect on children’s physical, social and emotional well-being.?Additionally, keeping children inside for poor AQI conditions makes them more vulnerable to COVID-19.?

What does it mean to your school district to have clean air through these purification systems??

Once our air purifiers arrived, many students were able to benefit from six hours of clean air, despite the ongoing wildfires.??

It is reassuring to know that the air in the classrooms is being filtered 10-12 times an hour.?I believe that this will help mitigate the spread of?COVID-19?in the classrooms, not to mention other viruses that show up during the winter months. Fewer missed school days result in more learning and happier kids and parents.???

Once the?air purification units?arrived, a?first-grade?teacher told me she turned it on, closed the door, and overnight the smell of smoke was gone. Complaints of headaches dwindled, and incessant coughing also became less frequent. I am grateful all our students could experience the unseen but definitive health benefits of pure air in their lungs,?hearts,?and brains. Unfortunately, the effects of climate change don’t seem to be slowing and it appears we will be living with wildfire smoke at the start of every school year for the foreseeable future.??

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