Haze From Napa Valley Blaze "Bringing Beijing to the Bay Area"
An all but everyday occurrence in Beijing is causing considerable anxiety in San Francisco, as the raging Napa fires push the AQI into the 151-200 in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley.
Local news outlet SF Gate (sfgate.com) quoted UC Berkeley professor of physics Richard Muller, who helped found the Berkeley Earth interactive AQI map, as saying: "These fires are bringing Beijing to the Bay Area and are allowing us to see what they experience around the clock.”
Citizens felt the ill effects of that haze, rushing to Home Depot to buy up breathing masks until they were out of stock, while people staying in shelters affixed bandanas around their faces, according to USA Today. UC San Francisco’s hospital, meanwhile, treated 20 patients for chest pain, dizziness, and shortness of breath, and smoke inhalation-related symptoms by Tuesday evening, according to a New Republic article (via City Lab, citylab.com) that called California's wildfires “a public health crisis.”
Other devastations stemming from the state’s ongoing 22 wildfires include the deaths of 21 people in the zones of the blazes, while upward of 600 people went missing as thousands of buildings burned to the ground. The broader outlook has been even more troubling, as 80 fires swept across 1.4 million acres through California, Montana, and Oregon, according to a City Lab story from September, which went on to attribute those blazes to a “climate-enabled drought.”
Zou strapped on a mask as the smog worsened in San Francisco
Despite the similarly awful air quality and concerns raised by the local populaces over environmental causes and repercussions, the response to California's current Beijing-esque AQI has been somewhat muted across China's news and social networks. That shouldn't come as too big of a surprise, in a way – after all, why would China's state media be eager to highlight American reporters' pejorative comparisons to Beijing whenever their air quality worsens?
Zeus Zou, a native Beijinger now residing in San Francisco, tells the Beijinger that it "is kind of annoying to see them always use Beijing as an air pollution standard. It is just reinforcing an image created and demonized in the Western media." He goes on to point out that "technically speaking, Beijing is not the most air-polluted city in this world" and likened such depictions to clickbait.
In the end, this all hasn't overly troubled Zou, especially given the far more tragic facets of the issue. "My first reaction, after I found out about the fire catastrophe in Napa, was simply to feel awful for the people who died or are suffering from the fires, rather than the air pollution."
Meanwhile back in Beijing, one of the few netizen comments about the issue that has gained attention simply said: "That photo of a hazy sky at sunset does look familiar."
Photo: Bloximages, Zeus Zou
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