Not all smoke is created equal (updated)

Some of our last customers this evening were a man and his wife, travelers headed out of town, who'd parked their RV at the fairgrounds and walked around town for a while today before the wife collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance. At the hospital, they said, there were 16 people in front of them at the emergency room, supplied with oxygen. They were told that a prescribed burn near here had gone through poison sumac (unlikely, since it's more of an eastern plant) and poison oak (but that also seems unlikely, this being more of a poison ivy sort of country, I thought... ah, this University of California write-up on poison oak tends to confirm that...although, according to this from the feds we certainly have some varieties or at least cousins around here). At any rate, there have been a number of people having very bad reactions to bad stuff floating around in the air.

The other day, one of our friends had to rush her elderly mother to the hospital, same problem, same diagnosis.

Can you properly call something like this an epidemic, if it's felling people left and right, but isn't caused by a disease? Perhaps not. But it feels like one, almost. So far, as far as I know there haven't been any fatalities, but a whole lot of misery and expense and worry, it sounds like.

My husband, who uses an oxygen concentrator and has been suffering more than usual the last several days, called a nurse at the hospital to confirm the story and to see if there was anything we could or should do. What we're doing, quite frankly, is counting our lucky stars that my husband and I don't have quite the sensitivity to these particular chemicals/substances as some other folks do. Past that, there apparently isn't much we can do, except wait for the smoke to go away. (And, I might add, hope we're not developing a sensitivity, which can happen with exposure. See linked articles above and below in this post.)

'How long has this been going on?,' I asked.

Five days, is what my husband understood the nurse to say. Five days of a rush on the ER by individuals with serious respiratory trouble. Egads.

'Has anyone told the people doing the burn?,' I asked. (Don't laugh. You'd be surprised how often people neglect to tell people in authority about a problem that's come to their attention. It's too easy, I guess, to assume that somebody else should know somehow, and therefore doesn't need to be told.)

I was assured that the Forest Service had been notified, and had, reportedly, canceled further burns in that area. I'm a bit unclear on whether it's trying to knock the current fire down or let it burn itself out. This being too late to call anybody tonight, I guess I'll hope for the best.

But I have a dumb question. Don't they have a list of vegetation that's known to produce toxic smoke when it burns? Who, in his right mind and with a bit of forestry knowledge under his belt, burns through toxic stands on purpose? Especially with an inhabited area downwind??? (I'm assuming the reports of this coming from a prescribed, aka planned, burn are correct.)

Now, I am getting my info third hand, remember that. But smoke is coming in from the forest, lightly but with a raw, ugly kick to it. Something is certainly causing a lot of breathing-related health trouble right now. It's reasonable to think it's probably that smoke. At any rate, regardless of what the details of the current incident actually are, I do hope the Forest Service, in future, takes steps to reduce particularly dangerous smoke, and, furthermore, does aim to not, you know, manufacture the stuff. Please, folks. Pretty please.

And, oh, if you're trying to clear toxic plants from your own property? Do please think twice before burning.

See also: Ohio State University pdf brochure on plants that cause skin irritants. (Includes warning not to burn toxic plants.)

See also: FDA write-up Outsmarting Poison Ivy and Its Cousins. (Includes warning to never burn the plants.)

See also: emedicine article on Plant Poisoning, Toxicodendron. (Toxicodendron being the rather apt genus name for poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac, etc.)

See also: Virginia Cooperative Extension's Poison Ivy: Leaves of three? Let it be! (Which warns about smoke...)

Update, Friday morning: I want to note that the rumor mill is working several angles on this. I've also heard that the smoke is coming from a burn being done by the city, and also that a local mill is burning scrap lumber and maybe that's what's doing this, or that it's a combination of one source and another. I honestly don't know who's burning what, but bad stuff is in the air, that's for certain. Most folks are all right with it, but people with respiratory illness or certain types of allergies or sensitivities, etc., are getting hit pretty hard.

For another example, last night, getting on toward one a.m., my husband (who manages a gas station) got an emergency call. An elderly couple, who live the next town over, had spent much of the day at the hospital in our town, as I understand it, because she'd stopped breathing and had been rushed there. But the hospital didn't want to keep her overnight, or they couldn't afford it, or something. At any rate, staying longer at the hospital wasn't in the cards. And so there they were, past midnight, without enough gas to get home. Or enough money to buy enough gas to do them any real good, for that matter. One of the night cops pitched in, and so did we, and, thank God and basic humanity both, we have a handful of local churches that take turns on pitching in on this sort of thing, so we got the folks on their way, with enough gas to not only get home, but enough to get them wherever they might need to get if they have more trouble.

Before anyone offers any snide remarks on how, the price of gas being what it is, we ought to be able to afford to give some away, I'd like to note that it's not our gas, we only dispense it. We don't set the price, except to the extent that we beg the head company to let us hold off on raising prices for a few hours, at the very least (and we do beg, believe me, frequently), or fight tooth and nail to not raise it as much as asked (did I mention that we aren't above begging?). But, of course, it is their gas and they have to pay for it and run the delivery trucks, etc., and so, at the end of the day, we're obliged to let them set the prices. We get paid a certain number of cents per gallon of fuel dispensed, regardless of the fuel, and regardless of the price. When the price of fuel goes up, our income tends to go down.