You're listening to life kit from NPR.
Hey, everybody, it's Marielle Seguera.
I'm looking out my window right now, and there's this gray haze in the sky.
It's not like a regular cloudy day.
It looks like the sky in some of the photos I've seen from Mars.
And if you actually go outside, it smells like a barbecue.
It's wildfire smoke.
Hundreds of fires are burning right now in Canada, and the wind has blown the smoke over Ontario, Quebec, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC and beyond.
And as someone who's lived on the east coast for most of my life, this is just not something I'm used to.
And it's overwhelming and depressing, to be honest.
But on today's episode of Life Kit, I'll be talking to somebody who does have experience with this.
Liz Baker is a producer for NPR's national desk, and she's based in Los Angeles, which often gets smoked out in late summer.
She's covered many wildfires and has suffered through smoky air from Oregon to Minnesota to Australia to Rome.
And she's here to help.
Hey, Liz.
Hi, Muriel.
What is it about wildfire smoke that makes it so bad for us?
Well, wildfire smoke has all kinds of bad stuff in it, but what makes it extra, extra horrible are these PM 2.5 particles, and these are caused by the super, super hot temps that these fires are burning.
They're just burning through forests.
They're burning through sometimes houses, plants, animals, everything.