Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Culture

Fireworks Smoke Is Coming for Our Already Smoky Cities

Will air quality anxiety make us rethink the Fourth of July?

The Statue of Liberty.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Of all the topics I’ve become an expert on in the past month — carbon-fiber submersible hulls; Yevgeny Prigozhin; the cultural evolution of orcas — by far the least useless has been the Air Quality Index.

While I used to have a caveman-like grasp of the AQI scale (red! bad!), multiple “smoke events” in the Midwest and East have since made me hyperaware of what I’m inhaling. Now I’m a person with opinions about the merits and limitations of AirNow vs. Purple Air vs. IQAir. I make observations like “it’s gonna be a hazy one” out loud to myself on the subway platform. A neglected Wirecutter-recommended air purifier, purchased after an apartment fire (long story), has been re-established in my living room.

It is as one newly-minted AQI aficionado to another, then, that I wanted to let you know to prepare for degraded air quality on the Fourth of July. Not because wildfire smoke is blowing back into the United States — though it might be doing that, too — but because nationwide, Independence Day and July 5 are often the highest average particulate pollution days of the year due to fireworks. In fact, The Washington Post has had to caveat its coverage of the smoke over D.C., saying "Thursday was D.C.’s third-highest non-4th of July smoke pollution on record" (emphasis added).

Before you come at me for trying to “cancel the Fourth of July,” understand that I have a solemn respect for our God-given right as Americans to gloat over the British by blowing stuff up. Some of my most cherished childhood memories, in fact, are of contributing to the sulphuric fog that would hang over the unincorporated lake where we’d go to shoot off mortars as kids. (Still hate Piccolo Pete’s, though).

But fireworks also release a lot of PM2.5, tiny particulates that can penetrate deep into our lungs and wreak who-knows-what-kind of havoc on our bodies, and that is also released by wildfires. PM2.5 is, importantly, one of several pollutants factored into the AQI. New owners of air quality monitors, purchased to keep an eye on recent wildfire smoke conditions, might notice readings tick up into the “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” territory on Tuesday night due to the celebrations.

In particular, the stuff that makes fireworks so pretty — heavy metals like copper, lead, sulfur, aluminum, arsenic, and iron dust — are not exactly things you want to be inhaling. Though recent research on daily mortality and fireworks-related air pollution has been so far inconclusive and is ongoing, one 1975 study found an 113% increase in respiratory illness treatments on the Fourth of July, the New York Post points out.

What that also tells us is that we’ve known about the air pollution from fireworks for years. That there hasn’t been a bigger public expression of concern might depend on a variety of things: that firework smoke pollution decreases rapidly after the 5th so exposure is fairly limited, but also that the fun of fireworks outweighs their (mostly invisible) tolls. It’s also very likely that relatively healthy Americans just haven’t paid that much attention to air quality before.

Now, though, that’s changing.

Interest in air quality began to spike in 2018 — then the largest, deadliest, and most-destructive wildfire season in California history — and grew further in 2020 when smoke turned San Francisco orange, Bloombergdeclared “smoke apps [are] the new weather apps,” and Apple added air quality recommendations to the iPhone’s native Weather app. Attention to air quality spread east this spring when New York City broke the national wildfire air pollution record. This week, the Canadian wildfire smoke returned and put more than 100 million Americans — nearly a third of the country, from the midwest to Vermont and as far south as North Carolina — under air quality alerts. In New York, the sky once again took on a sickly yellow-gray look and dramatic red sunsets returned; Midwestern cities had the worst air quality in the world earlier this week. As a result, many Americans are paying closer attention to the AQI than ever before; many others are paying attention for the first time.

A number of cities are reportedly reconsidering their fireworks shows as a result of the latest plume of wildfire smoke. “If [the Fourth of July] was today, we’d cancel,” the mayor of the Cleveland suburb of Solon, Ohio, told Cleveland.com on Wednesday, when the local AQI was around 244. “It is impossible for us to predict what will happen for the holiday celebrations on Monday and Tuesday the Fourth,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul similarly warned her state on Thursday, adding that residents ought to be “very, very vigilant before you plan your outdoor activities.” In Montreal, Canada Day firework displays, scheduled for Saturday night, were preemptively scrapped.

Of course, the irony of all this fuss is that sitting near a firework display has about the same effect as sitting in moderately dense wildfire smoke. I’m not saying either is a brilliant idea; the two compounded, certainly, would be rough on the lungs. But in the great American tradition of being free to make reckless decisions about our own bodies, it’s likely most celebrants this year will have to navigate these kinds of decisions for themselves.

After all, what could be more patriotic than that?

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Spotlight

New York’s Battery Backlash Catches Fire

Did a battery plant disaster in California spark a PR crisis on the East Coast?

battery
Heatmap Illustration

Battery fire fears are fomenting a storage backlash in New York City – and it risks turning into fresh PR hell for the industry.

Aggrieved neighbors, anti-BESS activists, and Republican politicians are galvanizing more opposition to battery storage in pockets of the five boroughs where development is actually happening, capturing rapt attention from other residents as well as members of the media. In Staten Island, a petition against a NineDot Energy battery project has received more than 1,300 signatures in a little over two months. Two weeks ago, advocates – backed by representatives of local politicians including Rep. Nicole Mallitokis – swarmed a public meeting on the project, getting a local community board to vote unanimously against the project.

Keep reading...Show less
Hotspots

Bad News for Agrivoltaics in Ohio

And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy.

Map of renewable energy conflicts.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.

  • County officials this week issued a public notice encouraging all residents to consider the economic impacts of taking farmland out of use to build solar farms.
  • “The Queen Anne’s County Commissioners are concerned that large-scale conversion of farmland to solar energy facilities may impact the long-term viability of agriculture in the county and surrounding region,” read the notice, which told anyone approached by a solar company about their land to immediately consult an attorney and think about these “key considerations.”
  • “As more farmland is transitioned to solar use, the demand for these agricultural support services diminishes. If enough land is taken out of production, it could create serious challenges for those who wish to continue farming.”
  • It’s not immediately clear whether this was related to a specific project or an overall rise in renewables development that’s happening in the county. But there’s a clear trend going on. Officials said in an accompanying press release that officials in neighboring Caroline County sent a similar notice to property owners. And it seems Worcester County did something similar last month.

2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.

Keep reading...Show less
Policy Watch

This Week in Trumpian Climate Chaos

On the week’s top news around renewable energy policy.

Musk and Trump in the Oval Office.
Getty Images/Heatmap Illustration

1. IRA funding freeze update – Money is starting to get out the door, finally: the EPA unfroze most of its climate grant funding it had paused after Trump entered office.

2. Scalpel vs. sledgehammer – House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled Republicans in Congress may take a broader approach to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act than previously expected in tax talks.

Keep reading...Show less