Wildfire smoke and heat waves force vulnerable Michigan residents indoors

Like many Michiganders, Stasia Cole used to spend her summer outdoors. Now she finds herself trapped inside her northeast Grand Rapids home most of the time, trying to escape the heat and hazy skies.

“It’s almost like it chokes you. It feels like there’s a tickle in the back of your throat, and you just can’t stop coughing and coughing and coughing, and you just can’t take a breath in,” said Cole, 60, who suffers from severe persistent asthma triggered by smoky air and hot, humid weather.

“I just quickly have to get inside and know that I can’t be outside when there’s wildfire smoke. With the humidity, it’s different. It just feels like you can’t take a deep breath.”

Cole is not alone. More and more people in Michigan are gagging on smoky air blowing in from Canada’s wildfires or struggling to avoid overheating during hot weather.

Weather data shows last month was particularly hot and muggy across Michigan. It’s part of a general warming trend driven by climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Michigan’s average annual temperature rose by at least 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1950s. In fact, last month was the world’s third hottest July on record, coming in behind the last two years, according to Associated Press reports.

Climate change is also fueling the Canadian wildfires with warmer temperatures, heightened droughts and more erratic rainfall, according to NASA and the Canadian Climate Institute. Fires burn hotter and longer now than ever before.

Michigan has already logged 23 days with air quality advisories or alerts this year because of particulate matter pollution caused by smoky winds from Canada. It’s been bad enough that Detroit even ranked multiple days this week among the 10 cities with the worst air quality worldwide.

State air pollution measurements for this year show the first 7-day round of smoke-filled winds blew into Michigan in late May and lingered into the first week of June. There was nearly a month without wildfire smoke in the air, but July brought off-and-on hazy periods.

Most recently, Michigan experienced nine consecutive days of air quality advisories because of Canadian wildfire smoke. The first day was July 29, affecting only the U.P., but it remained a problem every day through Aug. 6 almost always statewide.

“I stay in my house. I can’t leave. My life has changed,” Cole said.

‘You can tell the difference’

Oscar Hauptman is a typical 14-year-old sporty kid from Brighton. He plays soccer with friends, has volleyball try-outs on his calendar, and even joined a local rowing team.

Oscar has asthma and his breathing struggles create enough of a hurdle when he’s playing sports. Nowadays, recurring Canadian wildfire smoke blowing across Michigan makes everything far worse, he said.

“You can tell the difference,” Oscar said. “When you breathe in, like, sometimes it’ll feel like you get a less amount of oxygen intake, which can feel really weird.”

This summer’s frequently poor air quality impacted Oscar’s outdoor experiences. He tracks daily air quality measurements on his smartphone and said lately, smoky air forces him and his friends to stay indoors.

“If I want to go play sports … I tell my friends, ‘Today is like, really terrible, dude. I don’t think any of us should play, frankly,’” he said.

Oscar’s mother, Elizabeth Hauptman, serves as the Michigan field organizer for the nonprofit Moms Clean Air Force, a nonprofit which advocates air pollution control and climate action. She said this summer’s prolonged smoky air is an unwelcome new normal.

“I think Michigan weather used to be like a gift. We always would look forward to our summers,” Hauptman said. “And now it’s more of a gamble.”

Doctors and other medical experts are encouraging people like Oscar to pay closer attention to wildfire smoke conditions. That’s because smoky days are more medically harmful than many realize.

Dr. Larry Junck, neurologist and emeritus professor at University of Michigan’s Medical School, said outdoor air pollution kills more than 5 million people worldwide each year, of which 100,000 deaths happen in the United States.

“More deaths than opioids, more deaths than car accidents, more than gun violence, more than suicides,” Junck said. “It’s big, and almost nobody knows about it.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that smoke includes hazardous air pollutants like hydrocarbons, plus microscopic particulates of sulfuric acid, sodium chloride, heavy metals, soot, and even pollen and mold spores. And when the toxic mixture is inhaled, the particles can affect the lungs and heart and cause serious health problems.

“These things get all the way down into the lungs, where there’s a lot more surface of the lungs if they’re exposed, to cause inflammation problems,” Junck said.

Exposure to particulate pollution can lead to everything from asthma and pneumonia to chronic lung disease and heart attacks, Junck said.

Those most susceptible to poor air quality are those who are pregnant, children, older adults, and those with lung disease and heart disease. Those groups are now frequently advised to stay indoors.

Debilitating heat

Samuel Wright, 33, of Belleville knows full well how awful hot, humid days can be for people with medical conditions. He was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis six years ago.

First his condition came with full-body numbness, followed by painfully protruding discs in his spine. Most recently, he’s developed a complete intolerance for extreme heat.

Michigan’s recent summertime bouts of heat waves don’t just make Wright miserable; the heat becomes debilitating for him, just like others with similar diagnoses.

“It exacerbates the fatigue, the weakness, pretty much any kind of symptoms you have,” Wright said, explaining how even walking gets overwhelming.

Michigan health officials say hot weather is even driving people to emergency rooms. It happens when temperatures rise beyond 80 degrees, said Aaron Ferguson, who manages the state health department’s climate and tracking unit.

The hot days force Wright to stay indoors for air conditioning.

He plunks himself down in front of a fan because the constant airflow additionally helps him avoid flare ups. Sometimes he even wears a special ice vest designed to combat what’s called Uhthoff’s phenomenon, the medical term for neurological symptoms triggered by body temperature rise.

Wright is a vocal MS advocate among the growing population more often struggling with heat waves in Michigan. He keeps up with online chatter about how others are battling the hot, muggy weather.

“MS fatigue is by far the worst, because it’s like a 500-pound guy on you, and you’re trying to carry him all day. That’s how your legs feel, and it gets exhausting,” Wright said.

Pregnant women, babies vulnerable to heat

Ashley Ward, director of Duke University’s heat policy innovation hub, said research shows young children and pregnant people are particularly vulnerable to medical harm from extreme heat. Preterm births, brain injuries, severe dehydration, and even death are known outcomes, she said.

Independent climate data clearinghouse Climate Central this year calculated changes in pregnancy heat-risk days around the world. During the last five years, the United States nearly doubled its number of annual average pregnancy heat-risk days, a spike of about 12 days per year.

Michigan increased by an average seven pregnancy heat-risk days over the last five years, a more than 40% overall increase. But five-year calculations for multiple Michigan cities individually fared even worse.

Traverse City’s annual pregnancy heat-risk days jumped by a full two weeks – 14 days – while Marquette added 12 such days. Grand Rapids added 11 annual pregnancy heat-risk days, and both Flint and Saginaw added 10 days, according to Climate Central’s analysis.

“It’s not just about discomfort. It’s about rising health risk for pregnant people and babies in our communities,” Ward said.

‘A future where we take action’

So, what can be done?

Duke’s heat policy innovation hub is working on reducing negative human health impacts from extreme heat. An example is urban tree planting efforts that lower temperatures in city neighborhoods.

But in the Midwest, a pressing challenge remains awareness and education.

Experts say a major problem is that people from the Great Lakes region by-and-large don’t realize the magnitude of risk associated with hot, humid weather. Residents of other parts of the country such as the Deep South or Southwest are well trained in handling heat.

“I do think that people in the Midwest are not as tuned in to the dangers associated with heat,” said Dr. Annette Gilmer, Michigan’s senior public health physician. She said the same can be said about recent air pollution.

So, this summer the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) heightened its public messaging about health risks associated with extreme heat. State health officials are especially concerned about people at heightened risk.

“(People are) not making plans. They’re not adjusting their activities. They’re not having discussions with their health care providers about what to do, especially people with a lot of chronic conditions,” Gilmer said.

As for the wildfire smoke, Michigan lawmakers are starting to point fingers and demand responsibility.

A delegation of seven Republican U.S. Congressmembers from across Michigan issued a statement Wednesday, Aug. 6, that condemned Canada for its wildfire smoke pollution. The group called on “the Canadian government to take immediate and decisive action to contain these fires and prevent future wildfires.”

The statement was signed by Congressmembers Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, John Moolenaar, R-Caledonia, Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland, Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, Tom Barret, R-Charlotte, Lisa McClain, R-Bruce Township, and John James, R-Shelby Township.

One climate action leader said she’s also outraged by a third summer of smoke and pollution from Canadian wildfires.

Denise Keele, executive director of the Michigan Climate Action Network, said her camp’s “anger and demands are more appropriately focused on our own Michigan elected officials who continue to deny and fail to address the actual cause – climate change.”

Meanwhile, Oscar Hauptman said he expects the effects of climate change such as Michigan’s heat waves and smoky skies will grow worse before things get better.

He testified last month about changes to federal carbon emission rules that allow federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, the pollutants which drive global warming. He spoke during a virtual public hearing hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“I want to grow up in a world where I don’t have to check the air quality before stepping outside, a world where the weather doesn’t feel like a threat, and a future where we take action to protect each other,” Oscar said.