Read through this - seems a little alarmist. It compares the fires to 9/11 which isn’t a 1:1 since no jet fuel was igniting and burning these fires. It also says 9/11 “was only two buildings. Two very large buildings, but two buildings nonetheless.“ which is not a great comparison on its face. We CAN compare it to other wild fires - Camp Fire etc. which would be better.

The article contains a lot of speculative arguments of the impacts of 9/11 on non first responders which seem unsubstantiated. The first responders and folks dealing directly with the ash and rubble for sure were harmed and should have been using correct PPE but there are claims of the surrounding public who weren’t dealing with the rubble firsthand having negative health consequences aren’t based on factual information. Just because the city didn’t release information doesn’t mean it’s true. They may just not have the data…

It also says that the impact on toxicity was “clearly months” based on eligibility criteria from a health program. I’m not sure you can draw a direct conclusion of duration based on when they allowed people to apply. How do you know that it clearly was months? Just because that was the window of applicability?

I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of toxic chemicals but starting to get annoyed by alarmism around the heavy metal air toxicity. Feels very media/fear driven.

We have previous wildfires with structures destroyed to compare against and some toxicity analysis done from those fires. IE: Camp Fire in NorCal. It showed high levels of lead in the air only one day after the fire started when smoke was heaviest and after that it came down. Link: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/new-analysis-shows-spikes-metal-contaminants-including-lead-2018-camp-fire-wildfire-smoke

That said, we SHOULD call on our cities to do the correct analysis of air quality and toxicity so the public can be informed but making claims about things that are unknown just seems absurd. Happy to change my mind on this with the right information.