Months after the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires were extinguished, researchers found that a dangerous metal linked to lung disease and cancer was still present in the air near cleanup zones.
The team found the particles may have traveled well beyond the burn areas. Their modeling suggested the metal-laden nanoparticles may have moved as far as six to nine miles downwind, potentially affecting millions of residents.
A newly published study by researchers at the University of California, Davis and University of California, Los Angeles found airborne hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, near Los Angeles wildfire cleanup zones roughly two months after the fires. The peer-reviewed paper appeared in Nature Communications Earth & Environment and was released early so communities and scientists could review the findings while final revisions continue…