Updated May 2026 as wildfire smoke affects air quality across the Los Angeles basin.
As wildfire smoke moves through parts of Los Angeles, many people are wondering what they are breathing in and how concerned they should be.
The answer is not "don't worry."
If you can smell smoke, you are breathing smoke.
California Air Resources Board
What to do right now
- Keep children indoors when smoke is present
- Avoid outdoor exercise when air quality is poor
- Keep windows and doors closed
- Run HEPA filtration indoors
- Use recirculate mode in the car
- Wear an N95 when outside or cleaning
- Do not sweep. Wet wipe ash surfaces.
What is in wildfire smoke
Wildfire smoke is not benign. Even vegetation fires produce fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and hazardous air pollutants including benzene, formaldehyde, acrolein, and PAHs. These can irritate the lungs, worsen asthma, increase cardiovascular strain, and trigger symptoms like cough, chest tightness, wheezing, headache, eye irritation, and fatigue.
Not all fire smoke is the same
The Sandy Fire is primarily a vegetation and brush fire. LAFD has reported that much of the smoke affecting the San Fernando Valley is coming from unburned vegetation within the fire perimeter, with one structure confirmed destroyed across approximately 1,700 acres burned.
That is different from the 2025 LA fires, when entire neighborhoods burned. When homes, vehicles, plastics, electronics, insulation, treated materials, and household contents burn, the exposure becomes more chemically complex. The South Coast AQMD has documented that structural fire smoke carries a substantially different and more persistent contamination profile than wildland fire smoke. A 2025 study on post-fire soil hazards published in PMC found that environmental health threats from legacy contaminants, including lead, arsenic, heavy metals, asbestos, and combustion byproducts, can persist for years after flames are extinguished. Soil sampling compiled by UCLA researchers across approximately 1,300 Eaton Fire properties found that nearly 57% of standing homes had lead concentrations exceeding California levels of concern more than a year later.
This distinction is exactly why nuanced risk stratification matters.
Why exposure history matters
During the 2025 LA fires, part of my clinical training included working alongside Dr. Ashraf Elsayegh at the disaster relief pulmonary clinic at Providence Saint John's Health Center, caring for patients with smoke-related respiratory symptoms and environmental exposure concerns. Dr. Elsayegh is a leading Los Angeles pulmonologist, board-certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, critical care, and sleep medicine, with more than 20 years of experience directing pulmonary and critical care programs.
The lesson was not that every exposure should be treated the same.
It was that exposure history matters.
A short period of brush-fire smoke exposure is different from living near a burn scar where structures, vehicles, plastics, and building materials burned. But both deserve respect.
When to seek further evaluation
Most healthy people recover well after short-term smoke exposure. But persistent cough, wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, reduced exercise tolerance, or symptoms in children should not be brushed off.
At Elevé, we help patients think through whether further evaluation makes sense, including pulmonary referral, spirometry, imaging, or targeted testing based on symptoms, exposure history, and individual risk.
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