Health effects of smoke from wildfires

It's almost become a common sight each summer - the haze of wildfire smoke in the skies. Dr. Cora Lynn Sack, a UW Medicine pulmonologist, says her patients complain of worsened symptoms when smoke is in the air.

"The symptoms that we’re more worried about are shortness of breath, wheezing, or chest pressure and those could indicate a more severe problem and generally again those are people who have preexisting respiratory conditions like asthma, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or maybe someone who has preexisting cardiovascular disease," Dr. Sack says.

She discusses how you can relieve those symptoms and why wildland firefighters are more at risk of decreased lung function.

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