THIT406 Ep 41: Breathe Easier this Wildfire Season
Transcript
00:00:00 Trina Filan
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Talking Health in the Four Oh six, where we are one community under the Big Sky. I'm Trina Finland, a public health evaluator with the state of Montana. Today I'm chatting with two great guests about the health impacts of wildfire smoke and how to keep yourself safe during smoke.
00:00:20 Trina Filan
Events our guests today are Mary Anderson, Wildfire smoke coordinator with the Montana Asthma Control Program, and Doctor Chris Malocchio, research associate professor and director of the Inhalation and Pulmonary Physiology Corps at the University of Montana Center for Environmental Health Sciences.
00:00:49 Trina Filan
Welcome to both of you.
00:00:51 Mary Anderson
Thank you.
00:00:52 Chris Migliaccio
Thank you very much for having me.
00:00:55 Trina Filan
As winter fades and the weather turns warm, we'd like to talk about wildfire smoke, the impacts of exposure to it, and some great projects happening in western Montana to improve peoples access to clean air during wildfire events. Montana tends to have many wildfires every year, and a lot of smoke.
00:01:15 Trina Filan
Willows in off of them, but also from blazes in other parts of the country and the continent.
00:01:23 Trina Filan
From Canada and to the states, West and South of us, we get a lot of smoke. Some places in Montana have a very high risk of wildfire and some places have exacerbated risk of smoke exposure because of the way the topography works and the way the winds blow and move through different.
00:01:43 Trina Filan
Mountain ranges and valleys. So we're going to dig into all of that.
00:01:48 Trina Filan
We're going to talk about the complexities of wildfire smoke and give people some good info to carry with them into the summer months when risk of exposure increases. As usual, we'll make sure to put links to some useful resources in the show notes.
00:02:05 Trina Filan
Mary and Chris.
00:02:06 Trina Filan
Can you each tell listeners about your roles and how you started working on wildfire smoke issues? Why don't we start with you?
00:02:14 Mary Anderson
Mary, thank you.
00:02:16 Mary Anderson
I am the wildfire smoke coordinator for the Montana DPHHS and I came into my position through an EPA grant. The EPA last year awarded eight sites across the country with a wildfire. Smoke preparedness and community buildings Grant and Montana DPHHS.
00:02:36 Mary Anderson
Was one of them.
00:02:37 Mary Anderson
Our objectives for that grant are threefold. The first thing that we wanted to do is increase awareness and knowledge about the health impacts of wildfire smoke, what it involves and what people can do to help themselves both indoors and outdoors during wildfire smoke.
00:02:55 Mary Anderson
And the second thing we wanted to do is help HVAC contractors and maintenance and school officials have a good idea about what to do with their systems during wildfire smoke. So we are doing six free trainings on the new guidelines for H VAC.
00:03:15 Mary Anderson
Ventilation and and those systems during wildfire smoke events. And then the last objective we have is to.
00:03:23 Mary Anderson
The to develop the clean Air Recognition program and what that involves is helping Montana communities learn ways that they can create clean air buildings for their community members. So we have started with six clean air sites this year. We're working with programs across the valley.
00:03:43 Mary Anderson
And Missoula County and different buildings have signed up to be clean air Centers for their.
00:03:50 Mary Anderson
Areas and their goal is to make sure that when people can't clean their air in their homes and they're in the middle of a wildfire smoke event and need to be able to go someplace safe that those communities are available to them, they are helping us so we can develop those throughout the rest of the state and we will be moving into.
00:04:11 Mary Anderson
So more communities next year.
00:04:13 Trina Filan
Thank you very much, Mary, just for listeners, can you please spell out what EPA stands for? So the EPA is the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Thank you. And also you mentioned HVAC. Can you please say the full name for what that is?
00:04:33 Trina Filan
HVAC is an acronym for Heating Ventilation and air conditioning contractors. All right. Thank you for that. Great introduction, Mary. Chris, can you tell us a little bit about how you got started on these issues?
00:04:47 Chris Migliaccio
Sure. I'm. I'm a researcher at the University of Montana and my original background was in immunology, so I'm always interested in the immune system within the lungs. But then I had while I was going through more of my research and developing into more of a toxicologist.
00:05:05 Chris Migliaccio
My interest came into being more along the lines of the health effects of environmental exposures and usually what we breathe in.
00:05:14 Chris Migliaccio
And so I was doing a lot of work in that area. People breathing in a variety of particles, and how that was adversely affecting the lungs. And after I'd moved up here to Montana, I learned that there was a fifth season known as fire season and became very interested in.
00:05:34 Chris Migliaccio
Potential for adverse health effects from these exposures and as I lived here more and more and I was exposed to more and more wildfire smoke, I realized that maybe there's something going on here. And so we started doing some some research project.
00:05:52 Chris Migliaccio
It's both, you know, mainly in the lab trying to get at, we had to build.
00:05:56 Chris Migliaccio
A new system.
00:05:57 Chris Migliaccio
We have been through a couple of permutations and built several systems and being able to kind of get at what you know first of all, are there adverse health effects and then what is the mechanism? How do these happen that we can hopefully.
00:06:13 Chris Migliaccio
Develop either treatments or protect ourselves from these further exposures and so as we were kind of building up our research project, the whole system.
00:06:25 Chris Migliaccio
That was when the Seeley Lake wildfires Rice Ridge wildfires happened in twenty seventeen that were able to really put everything to the test to see OK, let's let's follow a cohort. A group of people within the community and see are there, you know, what kind of effects are there? Since we have been?
00:06:45 Chris Migliaccio
Everyone around here either goes camping or has been exposed at one point to wildfires. We seem to all be doing OK, but you know we no one has really researched this and that's when we started finding.
00:06:56 Chris Migliaccio
Yeah, there are some issues, and since then I've, you know, we built collaborations across the United States with a variety of people and trying to get at really understanding the mechanisms of these exposures on these effects from these exposures.
00:07:16 Trina Filan
So I appreciate that you pointed out we have an extra season wildfire season, but you forgot we also have construction season and those coincide right nicely sometimes.
00:07:29 Trina Filan
So one of the questions that some of our listeners might have is what is the difference between regular old Urban Air pollution and wildfire smoke? There are some chemical and also some differences in the way those impact our systems. Isn't that like?
00:07:49 Trina Filan
Yes.
00:07:49 Chris Migliaccio
Yeah, yeah, there's.
00:07:52 Chris Migliaccio
So there's a there's a lot of difference. There's a lot to unpack there. So historically, Mary had mentioned the EPA. They did studies historically, looking at air pollution and and determining OK what are acceptable levels, at which point do we know we start to see adverse health effects, you know, increases in respiratory disease and things like that.
00:08:15 Chris Migliaccio
U, M and so they would set and those studies were all done.
00:08:19 Chris Migliaccio
In an urban setting, so you know big cities and they they determine, OK, this is an acceptable level on a daily exposure. You know they have that set there as long as it stays below that. You know we don't see any adverse health effects. And then they also add what they called an annual level of exposure.
00:08:39 Chris Migliaccio
So over the course of the year, as long as you're exposure is below a particular level that we you know for for your average people, this is your, you're not going to find any adverse health effects. You know then they have different levels within that based on.
00:08:55 Chris Migliaccio
You know, at risk populations, people with cardiovascular disease or respiratory diseases or the young and the old, so things like that, but they so they did those studies historically and set the levels of what's acceptable, what's not the issue moving into wildfire smoke is that those studies were done in an urban setting.
00:09:16 Chris Migliaccio
Where the there's a couple issues with it. The biggest thing is, as you mentioned, kind of chemically that particulate matter we say particulate matter PM two point five, which means particles that are smaller than two point five microns.
00:09:34 Chris Migliaccio
That level, that size of particles is what is associated with the health effects. Well, all that stuff in the urban setting is from the most part, diesel exhaust combustion. So cars industry, things like that. And so that's one set of chemicals. Then you go to.
00:09:54 Chris Migliaccio
Like wildfires?
00:09:55 Chris Migliaccio
Completely different fuel source, you know, for us in Montana, the majority of our fuel source is going to be vegetation. And so you're going to get trees, bushes, shrubs, you know, grasses, those types of things are what's going to burn and it's going to produce.
00:10:16 Chris Migliaccio
Particles same size. You know the PM two point five that I mentioned, but chemically.
00:10:22 Chris Migliaccio
Different and the exposures are different because as I said, the EPA set it at. OK, here's your daily limit. That's OK. Here's your annual limit. That's OK. And because those studies were done. OK, so if we can.
00:10:37 Chris Migliaccio
Keep.
00:10:38 Chris Migliaccio
Pollution down below this for the course of a year, we're fine.
00:10:42 Chris Migliaccio
Well, wildfires don't act like that. And the example of the of of your daily limit for the EPA is thirty five microns, thirty five micrograms per cubic meter. So that's just just a number, don't need a whole lot of perspective in this as far as like well, what is that relate to?
00:11:03 Chris Migliaccio
The way to think about it that there's like if you if you keep below that on a per day basis, we don't see adverse health effects. However, in a wildfire, you're getting.
00:11:15 Chris Migliaccio
Two, three, sometimes six hundred micrograms per cubic meter. So.
00:11:22 Chris Migliaccio
How does that relate? That's a massive exposure, but then if you take that and you have that just for a few days and then you.
00:11:29 Chris Migliaccio
Spread it out over a year, then the EPA, BI Co. No, you're fine.
00:11:34 Chris Migliaccio
Because you were exposed to three hundred yesterday, but.
00:11:38 Chris Migliaccio
Three hundred over three hundred and sixty five days.
00:11:41 Chris Migliaccio
That's, I mean by doing that kind of math and we realize.
00:11:45 Chris Migliaccio
We can't categorize wildfire smoke the same way. We categorize one is chemically different and two, the exposure is totally different. So we don't know how to analyze it. So until recently.
00:12:02 Chris Migliaccio
A lot of the studies have tried to put wildfire smoke in the context of your Urban Air pollution definitions.
00:12:12 Chris Migliaccio
But it doesn't work that way and so chemically it's very different. And that doesn't, that just is the most basic chemical difference vegetation versus that that doesn't get into what we call the wildland urban interface or Wooley WUI, which is where.
00:12:32 Chris Migliaccio
The forest comes up against.
00:12:38 Chris Migliaccio
The urban setting. And so you get fires that include both vegetation and man made structures, and the chemistry from that is significantly different and we're still trying to understand.
00:12:51 Chris Migliaccio
How do we compare?
00:12:53 Chris Migliaccio
There's three kind of different air pollution right there, and trying to avoid putting them all into one lump sum one define it one way and saying OK, as long as it's below these levels.
00:13:07 Chris Migliaccio
It's fine or whatever. So those are, that's where it's getting more and more complicated. There's other things that complicate it as well, I won't.
00:13:15 Chris Migliaccio
Go into that right now.
00:13:17 Trina Filan
Thanks, Chris. So and we also have some pretty recent examples of wildland urban interface fires. A lot of those have happened recently in California.
00:13:29 Trina Filan
Yeah. And also a memorable one on Maui. So those all have different chemical constituents than just a a wildfire that doesn't hit structures and that has different chemical constituents and exposure.
00:13:50 Trina Filan
Then average urban exposure, what does?
00:13:55 Trina Filan
Any of this do when it enters your body, when somebody breathes in smoke.
00:14:02 Trina Filan
What is the date?
00:14:04 Chris Migliaccio
Those are the obviously some of the big questions, and this is a very young field of research as we're getting into this and mostly because there's been increasing wildfire. So there's been more and more interest in this. Certainly the wildfires in Canada brought this to the forefront.
00:14:24 Chris Migliaccio
Of almost the rest of the world, certainly.
00:14:27 Chris Migliaccio
The East Coast.
00:14:29 Chris Migliaccio
But for me, I look at the lungs. So when we breathe in these particles and I said the the two point five PM two point five use it as a the term respirable fraction. So those and those particles smaller than that were able to get into the lungs and they can have a couple of different effects.
00:14:50 Chris Migliaccio
For myself as an immunologist, I'm interested a lot of how it affects the immune system. So in the studies we've done, we found that the the wood smoke particles that are inhaled have an adverse effect on these cells called macrophages. The macrophages are in the air spaces.
00:15:10 Chris Migliaccio
Their main function is to basically gobble up anything that shouldn't be there, so any types of particles? Bacteria.
00:15:20 Chris Migliaccio
Harris 's they're the kind of the first line of defense to keep things from getting internalized, but the wildfire smoke particles we know adversely affects their function. And so there's lots of studies that in these types of exposures, there's higher incidence of respiratory infection.
00:15:41 Chris Migliaccio
As as one example. So that's always a concern. Is this adverse effect on a person 's ability to fight infections and fight what normally wouldn't be a problem.
00:15:54 Chris Migliaccio
And then we also have found that there are adverse effects on lung function. There are people with respiratory like asthma or COPD or cardiovascular disease. We know that these exposures can exacerbate their health conditions. You know, we have increased incidences of people.
00:16:14 Chris Migliaccio
Visiting the Ed who have asthma or COPD, even cardiovascular disease, there's a higher incidence of people going into the emergency room to be treated for exacerbations and China or something, things like that.
00:16:30 Chris Migliaccio
We don't know the long term effects. Those are always difficult trying to get in the laboratory to understand.
00:16:39 Chris Migliaccio
How long do these potential effects last? We've done in our study in Sealy Lake. We found that it can last up to two years post exposure. It's bad enough exposure.
00:16:53 Chris Migliaccio
So there are other groups that look at the effects on neurological effects of these types of exposures. It's not my field, but there are.
00:17:04 Chris Migliaccio
Certainly they're finding neuroinflammation from these from these exposures, both in humans have have mostly I think they're mouse animal studies. Yeah, there's there's lots of things that we're just now looking at other groups that are looking more outside of the lungs, like what happens.
00:17:26 Chris Migliaccio
You know, systemically from these exposures?
00:17:30 Trina Filan
Thanks. That's really interesting and much more complicated and complex than people probably were thinking so.
00:17:38 Trina Filan
You mentioned a few vulnerable populations, older people, younger people, people with cardiovascular disease, people with lung diseases like COPD and asthma.
00:17:51 Trina Filan
Are there any other vulnerable populations when it comes to wildfire smoke exposure?
00:17:58 Chris Migliaccio
I'll say you know the the big concern I say the big concern, certainly anybody with a pre-existing condition and the elderly, we also, there's a big concern for childhood exposures and that because they're still developing and that.
00:18:18 Chris Migliaccio
Is they're still trying to get a really good handle on, at which point you know there's discussion on, at which point.
00:18:26 Chris Migliaccio
Are they not as susceptible but as same exposure between the child? To get that you know an adult will get is probably going to have longer term impacts than the child get because of developing lungs and and neurology.
00:18:41 Mary Anderson
I would add a little bit to that. One of the groups that I've been working more closely with is people who are pregnant because and when you think about wildfires.
00:18:52 Mary Anderson
Oak and that the danger is breathing that into your lungs and the fact that those particles are so small, they go light to your lungs. Any population that is going to be breathing, those in more heavily are going to be more affected. So when you're pregnant, your breathing rates and your heart rate is up.
00:19:13 Mary Anderson
It can be up as much as fifty percent. So in those populations they're breathing in more air and they are finding some links to Preto.
00:19:20 Mary Anderson
Birth and to gestational diabetes, as well as lower birth weight babies and and women who are pregnant. So that's one population we we really want to make sure we're getting more information out to the other one is outdoor workers so.
00:19:41 Mary Anderson
And a lot of my work has just been focused on making sure they that people who work outside realize that.
00:19:50 Mary Anderson
First of all, a lot of times they're working more intensely because it's it's physical labor. So they're reading rates are up, but they're being exposed to that wildfire smoke when we're telling everyone to go inside. So that's the other population that it's just really important that they understand there are precautions, they they need to be taking. And if they can't take them during the day.
00:20:12 Mary Anderson
If they have to go outside, there are some things that we want them.
00:20:15 Mary Anderson
To do at night.
00:20:18 Mary Anderson
Just to make sure that we're we're reducing that information as much as we.
00:20:22 T Mary Anderson
Can and keeping them out of the smoke?
00:20:24 Trina Filan
Thank you both very much.
00:20:26 Trina Filan
I, Chris.
00:20:29 Trina Filan
You have talked a little bit about one time exposure versus repeated exposures over time to wildfire smoke. Can you just talk a little bit more about?
00:20:44 Trina Filan
What you have studied around that issue and what you're finding?
00:20:51 Trina Filan
One time exposure or rare exposure versus.
00:20:54 Trina Filan
Repeated annual exposure.
00:20:57 Chris Migliaccio
Yeah. So it's it's, it's a big topic right now in the field as far as is there a cumulative effect as I as I kind of said earlier, we can't think of it in terms of how we used to think about air pollution where you know if someone was living in an urban setting, we knew that they had.
00:21:17 Chris Migliaccio
You know this constant.
00:21:20 Chris Migliaccio
Relatively low level of air pollution that they're being exposed through, you know, through, you know, most of their their lives or for years on end. We knew what those impacts were. But because this is as we we used the term and this this perspective.
00:21:39 Chris Migliaccio
Piece that some colleagues and I wrote called exposures within and across, yeah.
00:21:45 Chris Migliaccio
And so understanding that one, it's different for everybody as far as you know how much you're exposed to you know, are you were you around during the last wildfire or not? And how long did the effects last or is there a a point at which you haven't been through a?
00:22:05 Chris Migliaccio
Wildfire.
00:22:05 Chris Migliaccio
Bring.
00:22:06 Chris Migliaccio
Out of five years, does that mean you're back at baseline or does it?
00:22:10 Chris Migliaccio
These are these.
00:22:11 Chris Migliaccio
Are the questions that a lot of.
00:22:12 Chris Migliaccio
Us are trying.
00:22:13 Chris Migliaccio
To get at in my lab, we did a pilot study just twenty people, twenty young people, and we looked at, you know, categorizing them based on their lifetime exposure.
00:22:26 Chris Migliaccio
To wildfire smoke.
00:22:28 Chris Migliaccio
Now we don't know the absolute amount that they're exposed to, but we had their the residential history. So we knew when they lived in an area that had a wildfire currently going on and when they didn't. And so we did find that.
00:22:48 Chris Migliaccio
You know one more time they had lived in Missoula at the greater their.
00:22:52 Chris Migliaccio
What we called the wild.
00:22:53 Chris Migliaccio
Our PM two point five burden was, which makes sense because we Missoula County is the highest wildfire smoke exposure county in the Valley, second within within the within the state. Historically at least within the last.
00:23:11 Chris Migliaccio
Thirty years, I think.
00:23:13 Chris Migliaccio
U M So we knew that. And then we did find that their level of wildfire smoke PM two point five.
00:23:21
Right.
00:23:22 Chris Migliaccio
Based on the residential history inversely correlated to their lung function, meaning that the more they were exposed to, the lower their lung function values where we ran this. This assessment called spirometry, where we test their lung function by staff scientist does that now. These were again these were.
00:23:42 Chris Migliaccio
Young, healthy people eighteen to thirty years old, so nobody was on oxygen really bad. It was just their relative level of lung function was lower in the ones that had.
00:23:56 Chris Migliaccio
A higher level.
00:23:57 Chris Migliaccio
Of exposure, suggesting that there may be a cumulative effect.
00:24:02 Chris Migliaccio
But we we need to back the writing. The grant right now to hopefully expand that study, because we need to be able to tease out.
00:24:12 Chris Migliaccio
Those with childhood exposures and those that were only exposed later in life, as well as you know, getting an older population as well within there and and getting that. So it is it is a it is a big area that is constant that is that is currently being seriously looked at because we don't know the question.
00:24:33 Chris Migliaccio
But it is a concern, especially for those of us who live here. I've I've only been.
00:24:38 Chris Migliaccio
Here about a.
00:24:39 Chris Migliaccio
Little over twenty years and I've gone through a handful of really bad wildfire seasons where I can't see my neighbor 's house.
00:24:48 Chris Migliaccio
No.
00:24:49 Chris Migliaccio
I'd like to know, I mean obviously I can still exercise, hike and all that. But you know we do.
00:24:59 Chris Migliaccio
Subconsciously adjust our activities.
00:25:03 Chris Migliaccio
Based on lung function, we don't know that we're going up the stairs slightly slower than maybe we used to. If you you just know. It's like, OK, I'm not going to take this. I am getting older.
00:25:14 Chris Migliaccio
Hello.
00:25:15 Chris Migliaccio
There's that too. But you know, these are. These are definite concerns, especially as we're getting more and more wildfires and bigger wildfires. And as you said here in Montana, especially Western Montana, we get exposed to our own wildfires.
00:25:29 Chris Migliaccio
And we get exposed to those from Washington, Oregon.
00:25:34 Chris Migliaccio
Idaho, California, Canada.
00:25:36
Yeah.
00:25:38 Trina Filan
Thanks, Chris. You also have, as you mentioned earlier, I have been doing a study on and you were able to do a really concentrated study on the twenty seventeen Rice Ridge fire and it's very concentrated impacts. Can you talk a little bit about?
00:25:59 Trina Filan
That study, please just remind folks about that fire, which was very intense and immediate and and what did you find?
00:26:09 Chris Migliaccio
Always like talking about this. It was fascinating. So in twenty seventeen.
00:26:15 Chris Migliaccio
The main fire was the Rice Ridge fire just outside of Seeley Lake, Montana, and there were, I think, two other fires that were contributing to that as well. At the same time, there was the little peak fire South of Missoula going on. But so this fire started.
00:26:32 Chris Migliaccio
And about a week or two in the.
00:26:39 Chris Migliaccio
Some individuals in the Department of Environmental Quality in Missoula County contacted some of us here at the university and said, hey.
00:26:51 Chris Migliaccio
This community is going through pretty crazy exposure. Unprecedented.
00:26:56
And.
00:26:57 Chris Migliaccio
Is there anybody there that can come and research or just, you know, maybe see if there's something bad going on? You know, there is a concern and and and whatnot. And So what? It also happened around this time this.
00:27:14 Chris Migliaccio
Was.
00:27:15 Chris Migliaccio
Like I think.
00:27:16 Chris Migliaccio
It was the first time, and maybe it's.
00:27:18 Chris Migliaccio
The only time.
00:27:19 Chris Migliaccio
But I know at the time it was the first time that they actually put out an evacuation, and it wasn't a mandate.
00:27:28 Chris Migliaccio
For a.
00:27:29 Chris Migliaccio
Evacuation like they do mandatory evacuations for fires. You know if the fire is coming towards your home, they say everybody's got to get out. This is a voluntary, but they did put out an evacuation notice because the smoke was so bad and so anyway, DEQ contacted us and so we said we could put a group together.
00:27:49 Chris Migliaccio
So between myself, we got some faculty and researchers and public health CEA.
00:27:57 Chris Migliaccio
Yes, as well as pharmacy, we got some nursing students and we got some staff scientists. We put this whole group together and we were able to get quick IRB or.
00:28:12 Chris Migliaccio
Basically, get approved to do human research.
00:28:16 Chris Migliaccio
And we got up there and so.
00:28:18 Chris Migliaccio
By the time we got up there, we only took us a couple weeks to.
00:28:21 Chris Migliaccio
Put this all.
00:28:21 Chris Migliaccio
Together, which was very fast, but it was a real team effort and we got up there. Our scheduled date to get up there with happened just happened to be right after it rained, so it had cleared up. And so that amused scientifically, it was kind of nice.
00:28:39 Chris Migliaccio
That the smoke stop at that point and we were able to get up there and do we had surveys we did spirometry on these people.
00:28:50 Chris Migliaccio
But they were exposed to. If you remember previously, I mentioned that the EPA cut off when they start saying they start putting out alerts that the bear is getting bad at thirty five micrograms per cubic meter. This community had a daily average for forty nine straight days.
00:29:11 Chris Migliaccio
Their daily average was over two hundred twenty micrograms per cubic meter for the again forty nine days, and they had peaks that were over six hundred.
00:29:20 Chris Migliaccio
Period. So you know what happened to them was you had these wildfires putting in smoke, and then you had the inversions, and that just kept the smoke there that much longer. So we were able to get up there. We did a spirometry. We were able to enroll almost a hundred people who ended up with ninety five people.
00:29:42 Chris Migliaccio
Because we actually ran out of materials we didn't know, we get through that.
00:29:45 Chris Migliaccio
Many people but.
00:29:46 Chris Migliaccio
We were able to enroll ninety five community members.
00:29:51 Chris Migliaccio
For for the study, we did spirometry and everything and that was in that was in September and with that ability we put in what's called a rapid response grant application to NIH S which is national.
00:30:11 Chris Migliaccio
Institutes and Environmental Health Sciences, which is part of NIH, and they have a they have a a program called this rapid response that if there is some sort of disaster.
00:30:25 Chris Migliaccio
Because normally it takes a year plus to get to apply for a grant, get it reviewed and get it accepted, and finally get the funds to do the work. This wrapper response the turn around is just within a few months. Historically the program had been used for hurricane studies, the hurricane hits.
00:30:45 Chris Migliaccio
They apply for funding to get this within a few months so they could get there on the ground and do whatever research. So ours was the first.
00:30:54 Chris Migliaccio
To do the rapid response for wildfire.
00:30:59 Chris Migliaccio
And so we we sent that in in November and we we were awarded the grant the beginning of March. So within just a few months, we're able to get that. And so we were able to go back to Sealy Lake and reevaluate the people for the next two years and do that.
00:31:18 Chris Migliaccio
Follow up on which was unique because historically, wildfire.
00:31:24 Chris Migliaccio
Health effects research smoke was all just done epidemiologically looking at hospital records so they would look at hospital records Ed visits.
00:31:36 Chris Migliaccio
Before, during and like one or two weeks after a wildfire vet and they say, Yep, Yep, there's an increase in people coming in for cardiovascular issues or respiratory issues. But then once you get past it was just, you know, it was just global. They weren't following individuals. This is one of the first times we you actually got to follow individuals and see.
00:31:59 Chris Migliaccio
On an individual basis, what changes might be happening? And so we went back there the following year and then the year after that and we were primed to go back the third year. But then this little thing called COVID came around and we decided not to do lung function assessment.
00:32:19 Chris Migliaccio
During the pandemic, so we stopped there, but what we found was that.
00:32:26 Chris Migliaccio
At one year and two years post exposure, there was a significant change in lung function. There was a decrease and it was skewed more. There's a bigger effect on males than females.
00:32:39 Chris Migliaccio
Which was, you know, very interesting to us and subsequently we've done an animal model here in the lab. Actually we've done an animal and a cell model and we see the exact same thing. There's more of an effect on the males and the females. We're obviously, we're still trying to. We're trying to figure that out.
00:33:01 Chris Migliaccio
And trying to.
00:33:02 Chris Migliaccio
Understand why that is. And there's there's other diseases in them in in human nature that there is this sex difference, but.
00:33:11 Chris Migliaccio
But going back and reevaluating the same people for a couple for the next two years was a real golden opportunity. And every year I would go back and to their community meetings and present my data and say, here's what we found and they would answer any of their questions.
00:33:32 Chris Migliaccio
And so it was. It was. It was really interesting. It was, you know, kind of ground. It was kind of groundbreaking and what it started to open up for others to look at.
00:33:44 Trina Filan
Wow, that is really a cool sounding study. It would be great if the opportunity had.
00:33:51 Trina Filan
Never come up.
00:33:53 Trina Filan
But because it came up, it's great that you were able to do that study, Chris. There were a few acronyms that you said, so I'm going to ask you if you would please.
00:34:05
C.
00:34:05 Trina Filan
Seeing what C, E, H S is.
00:34:10
Oh.
00:34:12 Chris Migliaccio
That's Center for Environmental Health Sciences.
00:34:16 Trina Filan
And you said EQ.
00:34:18 Chris Migliaccio
Ohh, the Department of Environmental Quality.
00:34:21 Trina Filan
And even though you explained what an IRB is for, can you say what that that stands for please?
00:34:29 Chris Migliaccio
Institutional Review Board.
00:34:32 Trina Filan
And one last thing you said what N, I, E H S is, But what is NIH?
00:34:40 Chris Migliaccio
NIH is National Institutes of Health now. The the umbrella under which all the other institutes are under.
00:34:47 Trina Filan
Thank you very much.
00:34:48
Much.
00:34:48 Trina Filan
So we have a lot of things to think about here that you've talked about and.
00:34:54 Trina Filan
We're we have very practical and lived experience with wildfires, smoke in Montana. And so we have a few questions then about what what's a person supposed to do anyway so?
00:35:14 Trina Filan
How do you deal?
00:35:16 Trina Filan
With wildfire smoke, if there's a sudden influx because the wind changes or because there's, you know, you have an increased exposure in your area, what's an average person supposed to do to deal with that?
00:35:32 Chris Migliaccio
And one thing I do want to say which you know kind of gets back to the difference between classic air pollution and the wildfire smoke is.
00:35:43 Chris Migliaccio
Looking at this question, you're asking now mitigation. So studies done with, you know historically the air pollution was they could, you know, determine OK, what's the healthy level, what's the unhealthy level?
00:35:58 Chris Migliaccio
And then they could then implement those things to change those levels.
00:36:04 Chris Migliaccio
You know.
00:36:05 Chris Migliaccio
Those types of mitigation strategies which like OK, we need to make clear cars, we need to have better, you know, cleaners stuff coming from industry or whatever. You know they could.
00:36:19 Chris Migliaccio
Because it's man-made stuff, we could then take that tact from an environmental health standard, a public health standard. We actually had something we.
00:36:29 Chris Migliaccio
We do wildfires. You don't.
00:36:32 Chris Migliaccio
It's not like, OK, well, we just need to decrease the smoke from the wildfires. No, you can't do that. We need to decrease the wildfire. Well, yes and no. I mean, there's a lot that goes into that whole thing, but wildfires are a natural.
00:36:47 Chris Migliaccio
They're just natural for the most part. I mean, yes, mostly up here, they're natural, but so we can't attack it as how can we decrease?
00:36:58 Chris Migliaccio
The smoke so we have to take as you're asking these mitigation strategies, which is a unique part of how to combat adverse health effects. And the biggest thing I know Mary had mentioned this previously. The big thing is decreasing your exposure. I mean granted if you could leave, great.
00:37:17 Chris Migliaccio
Steely Lake went through forty nine straight days of smoke. Very few people could leave for forty nine straight days. Not. Not to mention they had no idea when.
00:37:24 Chris Migliaccio
It.
00:37:24 Chris Migliaccio
Was going to stop, so it's sort of that open-ended type of thing, so.
00:37:30 Chris Migliaccio
You know and and.
00:37:31 Chris Migliaccio
Mary's got some great stuff as far as specific mitigation strategies, but our biggest thing is.
00:37:38 Chris Migliaccio
You know, decreasing your exposure, whether it's G creasing your activity or taking some things to filter the air there is that.
00:37:49 Chris Migliaccio
Other question which is?
00:37:51 Chris Migliaccio
Exercise. Mary talked about how you know, outdoor workers need to try and limit their exposure. Well, there's also those people who want to exercise because we know exercise is beneficial. So at which point do you stop gaining the benefit of exercise and it starts becoming detrimental because of smoke and so.
00:38:11 Chris Migliaccio
We don't know that we don't know exactly where the trade off is. We know the.
00:38:16 Chris Migliaccio
There's got to be a point at which you can still get benefits from exercising, but you, you know, either have to decrease your intensity or whatever. But it is, I mean, a lot of it does come down to your level of breathing, because every breath you're doing brings in more of the particle. So.
00:38:36 Chris Migliaccio
I'll let Mary talk about some of the specific mitigation strategies, but this I just want to touch on those two parts which are very important when we're trying to consider how do we decrease the adverse.
00:38:46
Health effects.
00:38:48
Thanks.
00:38:48 Trina Filan
I appreciate that, Chris. Those were things I was going to mention as well. So I love to listen to Chris talk about wildfire smoke and the health effects of it because it gives us such a great basis for why we started to become.
00:39:07 Mary Anderson
Concerned about this in Montana, that Seeley Lake Fire was a huge wake up call? I think for all of us who just thought this was something we lived.
00:39:17 Mary Anderson
And I was an educator before my career here, and that was the first time we learned about the activity guidelines that Chris had mentioned. And when we started to follow those outdoor activity guidelines about when to come inside and really for until I took this job.
00:39:37 Mary Anderson
I believe that once you came inside.
00:39:41 Mary Anderson
You were in a good position to be healthy. That's what. That's how you took care of it is. You just came.
00:39:47 Mary Anderson
Inside and we.
00:39:48 Mary Anderson
Weren't exposed, but the reason my grant is about clean air in communities is because we've learned that indoor air, sometimes within three and a half to ten hours, becomes.
00:40:00 Mary Anderson
As unhealthy as the outdoor air, and we just don't talk about that as much. So it's not just coming inside and reducing your activity. We have some specific things you can do inside your home inside your business or where you work to help as well. And the the biggest one.
00:40:21 Mary Anderson
Is for sure.
00:40:22 Mary Anderson n
Making sure your doors and windows are.
00:40:25 Mary Anderson
That is going to bring that time down and it's going to help keep some of those, those smaller particles out, but it's not enough. We also a lot of us live or work in older buildings or buildings that have cracks in our doors and windows. Those are things you can take care of in the spring because every crack.
00:40:44 Mary Anderson
Is the place where that air is going to get through the things that everyone can do is to keep your doors and windows closed and seal those cracks in your doors and windows. The next thing that we always recommend is purchasing a happy air cleaner. Those HEPA air cleaners, the links that we've.
00:41:03 Mary Anderson
Even have the best height to purchase, but most of them do an air exchange if they're fitted for the room, will clean your air four times in an hour.
00:41:16 Mary Anderson
So that makes the area in your home cleaner, and it may not be enough to clean your whole home if your system isn't big enough, but you'll keep it in the area where you spend your most time.
00:41:27 Mary Anderson
Now some people have said I can't afford to have the air cleaner, so if you get purchase a box fan and A and a filter at least a month thirteen or higher, you can make your own filter with those. And I have those directions linked in the system as well, but those have been.
00:41:46 Mary Anderson
Fully effective, what Missoula County Health Department recommends is you run that on high for fifteen minutes and then sometimes the noise is a little too much. So turn it.
00:41:55 Mary Anderson
Down to low.
00:41:57 Mary Anderson
It will still filter the air within about forty five minutes to an hour, and it works for people who can't afford to have the air cleaner and then one thing that we don't think about is what we are doing in our homes that create unhealthy air all the time. So especially when you're not keeping your doors and windows open, make sure that you are not cooking on the stove.
00:42:19 Mary Anderson
That creates pollutants. Try to use cleaners that don't have a lot of chemicals in them and then just avoid smoking or burning any kind of candles. One of the things that happens is.
00:42:31 Mary Anderson
That smoke events happened at the same time as heat events, and so people who don't have air conditioning are are making a choice between being too hot in their homes or having clean air. So what we really ask is that they have the air quality site bookmarked, so the best one.
00:42:52 Mary Anderson
Montanas air quality side is today's air.
00:42:55 Mary Anderson
New footage in the show notes.
00:42:56 Mary Anderson
The site that has been most monitors for our area is air now dot Gov.
00:43:06 Mary Anderson
They work with Purple Air, which is more low cost sensors and you can actually put your purple airs on that monitor. And right now the Montana Department of Environmental Quality will give an outdoor air monitor to any high schooler in the state.
00:43:26 Mary Anderson
For free, they give them an indoor and outdoor air monitor. Wow. Yes. And so it they just have to contact Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
00:43:35 Mary Anderson
And that way, schools will know when they can have outdoor activities, what they're trying to do is make sure we have monitors throughout the state because some of our smaller areas don't. But if you, if your high school is willing to put one on their high school, then you'll have it that you'll have a local air monitor. The thing is, the air quality changes throughout the day.
00:43:56 Mary Anderson
And So what you can do, if it's a heat event, is try to see try to open your doors and or your windows at a time where maybe that air quality is a little bit better for about fifteen minutes. The other thing is keep.
00:44:08 Mary Anderson
A fan running in your home.
00:44:10 Mary Anderson
Or what we're trying to do with the with this grant is to provide places in your community where you can go to get clean air. And so that's the whole point of our program is to try to develop areas in every community where if you can't do that on your own, that there's a place that you can do to get out of the smoke.
00:44:31 Mary Anderson
Get out of the heat and keep yourself safer.
00:44:35 Trina Filan
Thanks, Mary. How do you know?
00:44:40 Trina Filan
If you're indoor, air quality is good. You mentioned with the you can assess outdoor air quality. Are there any similar kinds of indicators for indoor air quality?
00:44:51 Mary Anderson
So you can purchase those low cost monitors. There are indoor air monitors. We use purple air, but there's a lot of different low cost monitors you can purchase.
00:45:05 Mary Anderson
But those may be too expensive for people. What I would say is assume that if the outdoor is unhealthy, that your indoor air needs to be mitigated, that you need to be doing some things indoors to protect your air.
00:45:21 Trina Filan
Thank you very much. There is one.
00:45:24 Trina Filan
U M thing I would like to ask both of you. I have seen people during poor air quality events wearing masks. Is that actually effective? And if it is effective, is there a better kind of mask to wear to protect yourself?
00:45:44 Chris Migliaccio
Yeah, an N ninety.
00:45:46 Chris Migliaccio
Five like what we had during COVID.
00:45:49 Chris Migliaccio
Is helpful without a doubt. You know wearing a a bandana. I don't. I don't know so much if that's going to help at all. But yeah. And in ninety five is is sufficient. You don't need to go to a a really high end you know.
00:46:06 Chris Migliaccio
Full mask or anything like that, but those types of things can certainly help, and certainly if you're, you know, a an at risk in and out risk population can anything you know a lot of the stuff that Mary was suggesting and activity levels and things that anything to decrease your exposure because again as I was suggesting.
00:46:26 Chris Migliaccio
Our you know, pilot data suggests that there may be a cumulative effect. So if you can decrease the accumulation, so to speak, that's going to help in the long run as well as exacerbating just acutely any kind of conditions you have so.
00:46:46 Chris Migliaccio
It it, it doesn't hurt to do it and an N ninety five is usually a sufficient thing.
00:46:51 Trina Filan
Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for that verification. So Mary, you mentioned that you are working on this very cool project to create clean indoor air spaces and you're specifically working in Western Montana communities. Can you please talk a little bit more about the details of that project?
00:47:11 Trina Filan
Is there a? Is there a name that these queen indoor airspaces are being given? Where are they?
00:47:21 Trina Filan
Tell us the details please.
00:47:23 Mary Anderson
Right now we are working in more Valley and Missoula County. We're working with the two counties that have traditionally had the biggest wildfire smoke exposures. We will be expanding next year. These are kind of our test sites, but we will be expanding this program.
00:47:41 Mary Anderson
And to the CS AT tribal community, Confederate Salish creatinine on tried the black feet community and into Lincoln County and Flathead County.
00:47:54 Mary Anderson
So in the end, we'll have eighteen pilot Clean Air Center sites and if you go to our website, I have developed a cleaner center guide and that's what we call them cleaner centers because they're for somebody to go for a couple hours, they're not shelters where people would stay overnight.
00:48:15 Mary Anderson
They're just a place where we have people who have contracted to say we're going to try to get our our air clean, will be monitoring that air and people are welcome to come here.
00:48:27 T Mary Anderson
So I was very lucky when I first took my position here in that Butte Silver Bow was way ahead of us in creating clean air centers. They had been working with students from Montana Tech on this for a while. So the student from Montana Tech.
00:48:47 Mary Anderson
Gave me a pretty good checklist about what to look for in clean air centers. Some of the things you talked about is to make sure that they were accessible. When we look at our vulnerable populations, a lot of them have some accessibility issues. So we wanted to make sure they could get.
00:49:02 Mary Anderson
In there, he also talked about the need for Internet and for charging stations. We needed to have enough electrical outlets for them to be able to stay in contact with their families, and we needed adequate restrooms and seating. And he said hopefully something for them to do.
00:49:21 Mary Anderson
So because we're working with community buildings, the most natural fit for us was libraries.
00:49:27 Mary Anderson
So we were very, very fortunate in River Valley County. We started with the bidder library in Hamilton and they were very, very quick to say yes to serving as a clean air Center for us and we wanted to spread that throughout the county so people wouldn't have to travel as far.
00:49:47 Mary Anderson
And ended up getting Darby Library on board as well as North Valley Library. Now because of that work, Lolo Library has come in and said they will be a site for us and see Lake is also a site.
00:50:02 Mary Anderson
And Missoula County Library is already serving as a Clean air Center for their community, but they're going to help as well. So we're really, really excited about this partnership. First of all, it's a place where anyone can find something to do, and they are all every library that I'm working with.
00:50:22 Mary Anderson
Is creating activities. So in the morning we're going to have an activity so kids can come in and we'll have a story hour and we can talk about air quality.
00:50:32 Mary Anderson
In the afternoon we can do something like showing how to make box stand filters or we can have a senior activity. So it feels like there's they're getting out of the air, they're doing what they need to do to be healthy, but also they're not just sitting. So we were very, very fortunate for that in that Clean Air Center guide, there is steps for anyone throughout the state.
00:50:55 Mary Anderson
If you would like to develop a cleaner center, whether you're a library or Community Center or a Senior Center if you'd like to provide that for your Community, you can go through that.
00:51:03 Mary Anderson
Checklist.
00:51:05 Mary Anderson
So we're super excited about.
00:51:06 Mary Anderson
That the other thing that I was asked to do was to create toolkits. I I work a lot with emergency services and local health departments, and what they asked for is resources that they could just grab and be able to disseminate quickly during a wildfire smoke event. So if you go to our website.
00:51:27 Mary Anderson
There's two toolkits, there's.
00:51:29 Mary Anderson
One, it's just called the wildfire Smoke Response toolkit and all of our education information is in there, but it also has templates for people in the community to be able to talk about wildfire smoke events. It has different social media posts already canned and ready to go, and informational Flyers.
00:51:50 Mary Anderson
And then that there's a school one.
00:51:52 Mary Anderson
As well, one of the things that I know from working in schools, that's where a lot of parents get their information. They may not always watch the news or they may not always pay attention to what's going on in the community, but they always look at their kids homework. So through the schools, we have a school response toolkit. Again, it has some.
00:52:12 Mary Anderson
E-mail templates to send to parents and and teachers.
00:52:15 Mary Anderson
It has who are your vulnerable populations? But it also has activities and lesson plans for every grade. So kids can take that information home to their parents. The Department of Environmental Quality has done a great job of making sure high school athletics understand.
00:52:35 Mary Anderson
The dangers of.
00:52:35 Mary Anderson
Being outside during poor air quality times, but our younger kids and our younger coaches don't have access to that information, so we're hoping that by having that school response toolkit, we'll be able to disseminate that information to those younger ages as well.
00:52:52 Trina Filan
Thank you. That was, that sounds so good. And I have taken a look at those toolkits. They're beautiful. They're beautiful. They're easy to access. And we'll make sure to put the links to all of them in the show notes.
00:53:07 Trina Filan
A question for either of you is there.
00:53:11 Trina Filan
Something where there are a few things that people can do if they're exposed to wildfire smoke to recover fairly quickly. Give me your water or their electrolytes. What kinds of things can you do to help yourself feel better?
00:53:29
OK.
00:53:30 Mary Anderson
When Chris was talking about wildfire smoke exposure, there is a a big concern about permanent damage or long term damage that happens, but there has been a little bit of research done with wildland fighters and there are a few although we.
00:53:51 Mary Anderson
Continue to see throughout the season that their performance and their time of recovery is definitely shortened throughout the season.
00:54:02 Mary Anderson
There are some recommendations that have been given to them. One of the things that they talk about a lot is firing heat dehydrate and when you're thinking about toxins going into your bloodstream, what we want to do is give our liver and our kidneys the best chance of filtering those out as much as we can.
00:54:22 Mary Anderson
So the more water we can drink, the easier it is for our kidneys and livers to to filter out some of those chemicals.
00:54:30 Mary Anderson
So I'm one of the things that could make a difference. Is just making sure you're staying very hydrated. The other things that I talk about and when I when I talk to athletes is to think about this inflammation in your body as a sprained ankle, it's inflammation. And so with inflammation.
00:54:50 Mary Anderson
You want to rest, you're going to want to.
00:54:52 Mary Anderson
Sleep more for sure.
00:54:54 Mary Anderson
You are going to want to sleep with a HEPA air cleaner. You're going to do whatever you can to take that pressure out of your lungs. So when you go to bed at night, have a cleaner in that room so it's making it easier to breathe when you're trying to recover. And then the last thing I'd say is just think about what foods they tell you to.
00:55:13 Mary Anderson
Eat when you're.
00:55:14 Mary Anderson
Injured and one eat foods with antioxidants in them, so they are things like dark chocolate berries, kale.
00:55:23 Mary Anderson
You can look those up, but you want to look at anti-inflammatory foods. It's not going to hurt and it may help with recovery. So for sure stay hydrated, use a filter when you're sleeping. Sleep. You know when you when you can get out of that air rest but.
00:55:42 Mary Anderson
Also, maybe look at just getting.
00:55:44 Mary Anderson
More around student foods in your diet.
00:55:47 Chris Migliaccio
That all is is definitely really simple stuff to to.
00:55:50 Chris Migliaccio
Do.
00:55:51 Chris Migliaccio
I agree.
00:55:51 Trina Filan
Thank you. Thank you.
00:55:55 Trina Filan
I think this is really good information to share with folks because in summer we want to do stuff right? It's time to go run around. It's time to go hike. It's time to go be outside and there are times we should not be.
00:56:10 Trina Filan
If it's very high smoke exposure, then you should. You should take precautions and sleep a little bit and use the opportunity to to relax and I become very best friends with my rescue inhaler during during wildfire season because.
00:56:30 Trina Filan
It exacerbates my asthma, so take precautions. Take care of yourself and which feels contradictory but is good good advice.
00:56:44 Trina Filan
This is a great.
00:56:46 Trina Filan
Partnership between academic research and public health. It's a great opportunity for two kinds of expertise to come together and create good information for people in everyday.
00:57:06 Trina Filan
Situation. So is there anything about your collaboration that stands out to you as particularly interesting the public health and the university combo?
00:57:20 Chris Migliaccio
For me, it's great being able to see. I mean, Mary's got a group of us that she constantly sends out notices. It's like, hey, what do you guys know about this and that?
00:57:32 Chris Migliaccio
And I'm not always talking with those colleagues of mine, so it's good to see some of their their replies and I'll I'll reach out to you know, John or something like, oh, wow. What are you seeing on this type of thing? But it is. It's also important for me as a researcher.
00:57:50 Chris Migliaccio
To get out of the lab, so to speak, if not physically, at least, understand what what the interaction the interface is with the public and how best to get that information out, how Mary is helping get the information out and educate the population. And then what are the questions that she's getting?
00:58:11 Chris Migliaccio
That I can. Yeah. That sometimes incorporate it into our research or at least our thought process as we're developing our research project, it's very important as we every so often our group.
00:58:24 Chris Migliaccio
Which is very bent science type of group for the most part.
00:58:30 Chris Migliaccio
We always, every so often we'll have to. We take a step back and like, OK, let's remember why.
00:58:34 Chris Migliaccio
We're doing.
00:58:34 Chris Migliaccio
This, you know, we can get so stuck in the weeds. That was like, OK, our whole point is proving the human condition. And so we have to keep reminding ourselves, here's what the here's what the concerns are from the people. Like they don't understand everything 's going on.
00:58:49 Chris Migliaccio
But they want to know.
00:58:51 Chris Migliaccio
AB and C like ohh OK. Yeah, right. We can we can. We can answer that or we can actually ask those questions too in the lab and hopefully get them some answers. So it's always important to for us in these fields to keep coming back to the why we're doing what we're doing and and that's the ultimate thing is we're just trying to.
00:59:12 Chris Migliaccio
Do our best to improve the human condition.
00:59:15 Chris Migliaccio
Understand what's going on and what we could do to.
00:59:20 Chris Migliaccio
Help people so.
00:59:22 Mary Anderson
I would say I was brand new to the field of Vladmir smoke and really chronic disease last year when I started and one of the things that I have loved about working with a lot of that there's a lot of researches at U of N that are doing amazing work.
00:59:42 Mary Anderson
But I would say.
00:59:44 Mary Anderson
What I love about working with the researchers and is the same thing that I love about working with the Department of Environmental Quality and the National Forest Service and a lot of our non government organizations that are involved in this work is I feel like.
01:00:01 Mary Anderson
We at Montana DPHHS just have the capacity.
01:00:05 Mary Anderson
To bring everybody together and there's so much work going on. Emergency managers are doing great work and the health departments are doing great work and we needed a place where we could collaborate and figure out what everyone else is doing and start to share resources.
01:00:25 Mary Anderson
So the information that Chris gives me I give to everybody I speak with and when my emergency manager said we don't have any supplies when there's a wildfire.
01:00:40 Mary Anderson
We get all these supplies from the disaster emergency services. There's nothing for smoke. I set up a meeting, gave U.S. dollars to put together, go packs for smoke events. So any emergency manager in the state can request that during the smoke event. So I feel like this is a brand new.
01:01:00 Mary Anderson
Field. But people are working and wanting to work together and I really feel.
01:01:05 Mary Anderson
Like I'm I'm.
01:01:06 Mary Anderson
Just the person that brings people together. So I love that and I also love to be a part of something brand new. In twenty years, people are going to go.
01:01:17 Mary Anderson
You never thought that running during a smoke event was a bad idea? I feel like with the with the start of that and we can really help move that forward and I'm excited to do that outstanding. Is there anything either of you wanted to talk about that you didn't get to now is the time to?
01:01:37 Mary Anderson
Bring it up.
01:01:39 Mary Anderson
I would just encourage people to if if you're worried about the the air quality in your Community during a smoke event to be reaching out to your health department and emergency managers because they will know air quality or what resources are available in your Community so.
01:01:59 Mary Anderson
We will be a site that will host as much of that as we can, but know that your local partners are really working hard.
01:02:06 Mary Anderson
And we'll have that information for you. And please feel free to reach out to me or anybody here at Montana DPH just in chronic disease. So we can get your resources if this.
01:02:19 Mary Anderson
Is something you're struggling with.
01:02:21 Trina Filan
Thank you, Mary.
01:02:22 Trina Filan
On behalf of myself and the crew behind the scenes, thank you so much, Mary and Chris for sharing your knowledge, your stories, and a whole bunch of great resources with us today.
01:02:34 Trina Filan
If anyone listening would like more information on the things we discussed today, you can visit our website at talking health in the four oh six dot Mt dot Gov. There you'll find links to the information we discussed today and if you haven't already, Please remember to wait.
01:02:55 Trina Filan
Review and subscribe to our podcast until next time. Be healthy and be well.