Station Fire leaves residents in the dust

Station Fire leaves residents in the dust

2 December 2009

published by www.dailynews.com

USA —

Lisa Sarkin of Studio City feels like she’s trapped in fog of brown soot.

For the past several days, a thin sheet of brown dust has been covering her house, her cars, her clothes when she goes outside – and her conversations are broken up with a cough she can’t seem to get rid of.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life,” Sarkin said. “My pool is covered in something that’s not dust and it’s not dirt and looks like little flowery stuff.

“When I put my arm in the water and pulled it out, I had a brown ring around it. This stuff just sticks to everything.”

Sarkin, like hundreds of thousands of San Fernando Valley residents, is among the latest victims of this summer’s Station Fire – the worst fire in the city’s history in terms of area burned that three months later continues to haunt Los Angeles.

In recent days, officials said, Santa Ana winds blowing through the Angeles National Forest, where the fire charred a 250-square-mile area, created a grayish-brown haze of dust and ash that has hovered over Los Angeles, especially in the Northeast Valley.

Residents have reported finding a sticky film on cars, pools and any flat surface of their property.

Los Angeles school officials were so concerned about air quality conditions early in the week that they canceled outside recess activities for students at many of the district’s schools.

But the South Coast Air Quality Management District said air quality has improved in the South Coast Air Basin since then, with no special advisories in effect as of Wednesday.

“We have not had anything extraordinary in the past few days,” said Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the South Coast AQMD.

Atwood confirmed that the brown dust has been ash and dust from the Station Fire, kicked up by the winds, and possibly comingled in weather conditions that are normal for this time of year. But the same brown dust condition may pick up again in coming days with renewed winds.

Experts warn that extended exposure to this kind of particulate pollution could pose health dangers.

According to the National Weather Service, the brown dust condition was worsened by the light to moderate offshore winds with gusts up to 60 mph that blew through the region.