Scientists Are Worried About Ocean Damage From LA Fires

As crews work to remove potentially hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous materials from the Los Angeles wildfires, researchers and officials are trying to understand how the fires on land have impacted the sea. The Palisades and Eaton fires scorched thousands of homes, businesses, cars, and electronics, turning everyday items into hazardous ash made of pesticides, asbestos, plastics, lead, heavy metals and more. Since much of it could end up in the Pacific Ocean, there are concerns and many unknowns about how the fires could affect life under the sea, the AP reports.

On a recent Sunday, Tracy Quinn drove down the Pacific Coast Highway to assess damage wrought upon the coastline by the Palisades Fire. The water line was darkened by ash. Burnt remnants of washing machines and dryers and metal appliances were strewn about the shoreline. Sludge carpeted the water's edge. Waves during high tide lapped onto charred homes, pulling debris and potentially toxic ash into the ocean as they receded. "It was just heartbreaking," says Quinn, president and CEO of the environmental group Heal the Bay. "We haven't seen a concentration of homes and buildings burned so close to the water."

Fire debris and potentially toxic ash could make the water unsafe for surfers and swimmers, especially after rainfall that can transport chemicals, trash, and other hazards into the sea. Longer term, scientists worry if and how charred urban contaminants will affect the food supply. Scientists on board a research vessel during the fires detected ash and waste on the water as far as 100 miles offshore, says marine ecologist Julie Dinasquet with the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They described the smell as electronics burning, "not like a nice campfire," she says.

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Dinasquet and colleagues are working to understand how far potentially toxic ash and debris dispersed across the ocean, how deep and how fast they sank and, over time, where it ends up. "Reports are already showing that there was a lot of lead and asbestos in the ash," she says. "This is really bad for people so it's probably also very bad for the marine organisms." (More California wildfires stories.)