When Nicholas Spada, one of the only scientists in the world who uses a nuclear method to detect toxic nanoparticles in wildfire smoke, took samples following the devastating Los Angeles fires earlier this year, he was alarmed by what he found.
As Inside Climate News reported, Spada is a project scientist at the UC Davis Air Quality Research Center and on a mission to ensure the public is aware that potentially harmful substances may be lurking in the air they breathe. He grew up near a vermiculite processing plant in Lompoc, California, and remembers his neighborhood caked in white dust, with people constantly coughing. Since then, he’s been determined to fight for cleaner air and help people understand how to protect themselves from pollution.
After the LA wildfires in January, Spada’s workload really picked up when fellow air researchers across the U.S. came to California to study which chemicals were in the urban fires, where most of the fuel was human-made, as ICN explained. Since synthetic materials contain a complex and toxic cocktail of chemicals, such as dioxins, lead, and heavy metals, they pose a significant health risk to people when inhaled, even in short bursts…