美国国家公共电台 NPR The Smoke In Redding, Calif., Is So Thick You Can't See The Sun Most Days

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

California is marking one of the most destructive fire seasons in its history. The Mendocino Complex Fire alone is the largest wildfire ever recorded in California and has currently consumed close to 400,000 acres. Across the state, more than 800,000 acres have burned. The multiple wildfires of the summer have taken lives, burned hundreds of homes and structures and caused thousands of people to be evacuated¹. There's another byproduct of these fires that will affect hundreds of thousands more people - smoke and the unhealthy toxins² blowing in with it. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports on how the West is trying to make itself more smoke-ready.

KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE³: In the mountains of Northern California, Richard Libscomb's home has been choked by wildfire smoke for weeks. At first, it was just a nuisance, until one afternoon when he was out doing work around the garden.

RICHARD LIBSCOMB: I went up there, and I started breathing hard. I couldn't - what the dickens going on? I started getting dizzy, and I fell down, and I...

SIEGLER: The doctor told him wildfire smoke particles were coating his lungs. Now Libscomb has to travel everywhere with a small oxygen tank for emergencies.

R. LIBSCOMB: You know, it just - what in the hell's going on, you know? It never happened to me like that before. I'm a pretty outdoorsman.

SIEGLER: Libscomb is 81. He and his wife and son had to make the two-hour trip to Redding for doctors' appointments.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yes, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Okey-doke.

SIEGLER: At the Whiskeytown Reservoir, the Libscombs are waiting with neighbors for authorities to escort them a hundred miles home through the burned area of the Carr Fire. Now, fires are a part of life here. Richard used to fight them when he was young. But the smoke never lingered this long.

R. LIBSCOMB: This year, it's been hanging in there. It's pretty good sometimes in the morning, and then before the day's over, oh, you can't see those trees.

SIEGLER: In Redding, you can't even see the sun most days. The smoke is that thick. High school football teams are practicing indoors. People who do have to go outside are wearing these green N95 smoke masks that filter out 95 percent of the harmful particulates⁴.

DAVE MARON: I think there's about 15,000 masks. We've already distributed about 10,000 masks.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Wow.

SIEGLER: Dave Maron at the Shasta County health department says for three weeks straight, Redding has endured unhealthy air.

MARON: You can hear everywhere how difficult it is. Everybody comes in coughing a little bit, just struggling, sneezing, watery⁵ eyes.

SIEGLER: Across the West, health agencies are urging people to seal off their windows and doors and change the filters in their air conditioning if they're lucky enough to have it. In Redding, when the temperature gets above a hundred for long stretches, which it does now a lot, the county opens cooling centers.

MARON: It's been, you know, a constant messaging from public health to avoid exertion⁶ outdoors, wear your masks because the exposure to long-term wildfire smoke does have health effects.

SIEGLER: Especially for children, whose lungs aren't fully⁷ developed, and older people, who may have pre-existing conditions. With climate change and dense⁸ stands of trees and brush ready to burn, scientists are warning smoke seasons will also lengthen⁹. It used to be a few days here or there. Now we're talking weeks, even months.

ANTHONY WEXLER: So you've heard a lot about air pollution in Beijing. Yeah, that's what it's like.

SIEGLER: Anthony Wexler directs the Air Quality Research Center at UC Davis. Even here, 80 miles from the nearest big fire, he's been measuring air quality readings 10 times worse than the federal standard. In California's Central Valley, the smoke pollution gets trapped and lingers.

WEXLER: You don't want a lot of wind because that - because a lot of wind makes the fire impossible to put out. But if you don't have the wind, then the smoke just sits there. So you're kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

SIEGLER: Wexler is leading a team of scientists who are studying the long-term health effects of prolonged exposure to wildfire smoke. It's a relatively¹⁰ new field of research, but their work is urgent in states like California, where towns and even whole cities have been built out into forests where the fire risk is high. On the west side of Redding, the devastation¹¹ from the Carr Fire is alarming. Homes, power lines, old cars, gas tanks were incinerated. It's not just smoke from burning trees anymore, says Dave Moran at the health department.

MARON: When you get smoke, you know, from structures with benzenes and other cancer-causing formaldehydes and things like that in these materials, that's a whole nother ballgame.

SIEGLER: For now, most people are just staying inside when they can. Being cooped up this long has been hard for Richard Libscomb and his wife Sonya. They're an active outdoor family.

SONYA LIBSCOMB: We're just going day by day depending on how the wind shifts.

R. LIBSCOMB: Right.

S. LIBSCOMB: It'll take it away or bring it in.

SIEGLER: You can detect a reluctant acceptance in the West that prolonged smoke events are the future, just like these more destructive wildfires. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Redding, Calif.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERIK FRIEDLANDER'S "NIGHT WHITE")

1 evacuated   

撤退者的

参考例句：

• Police evacuated nearby buildings. 警方已将附近大楼的居民疏散。
• The fireman evacuated the guests from the burning hotel. 消防队员把客人们从燃烧着的旅馆中撤出来。

2 toxins   

n.毒素( toxin的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The seas have been used as a receptacle for a range of industrial toxins. 海洋成了各种有毒工业废料的大容器。
• Most toxins are naturally excreted from the body. 大部分毒素被自然排出体外。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 particulates   

n.微粒，粒子( particulate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Techniques for controlling particulates include filtering, washing, centrifugal separation, and electrostatic precipitation. 控制颗粒污染物的技术包括过滤、洗涤、离心分离、静电沉降。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Only micronic particulates penetrate to the depth of the lung. 只有微细粒子穿透到肺深部。 来自辞典例句

5 watery   

adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的

参考例句：

• In his watery eyes there is an expression of distrust.他那含泪的眼睛流露出惊惶失措的神情。
• Her eyes became watery because of the smoke.因为烟熏，她的双眼变得泪汪汪的。

6 exertion   

n.尽力，努力

参考例句：

• We were sweating profusely from the exertion of moving the furniture.我们搬动家具大费气力，累得大汗淋漓。
• She was hot and breathless from the exertion of cycling uphill.由于用力骑车爬坡，她浑身发热。

7 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

8 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

9 lengthen   

vt.使伸长，延长

参考例句：

• He asked the tailor to lengthen his coat.他请裁缝把他的外衣放长些。
• The teacher told her to lengthen her paper out.老师让她把论文加长。

10 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

11 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》