A voter fills their ballot at a vote center at Sol Mexican Grill in Chico on June 2, 2026.
(
Salvador Ochoa
/
CalMatters
)
Topline:
California voters approved a top-two primary election designed to encourage moderation. But in most races, it ends in a conventional Democrat vs. Republican. Some are ready to scrap the top two.
Why now: For all its political reputation as the left coast, California is simply not overwhelmingly Democratic enough to regularly advance two Democrats to the general election, said Andrew Sinclair, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College who has studied the effects of California’s top two.
The backstory: California’s unusual “top two” election system puts every candidate on the same primary ballot; the first and second place winners progress to the general election. The idea, approved by voters in 2010, was advertised as an engine of both political moderation and more meaningful choice. Both the Democratic and Republican parties were opposed.
Read on... for more on the how the top two system came to be and what it means for elections.
For all the talk of a governor’s race between two Republicans, or even two Democrats, it’s looking like voters are in for a typical partisan matchup in November.
In predictably Democratic California, there’s no need for a political science degree or a crystal ball to confidently predict the result of a general election face-off between Xavier Becerra, the current Democratic front-runner, and former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican.
Despite the top-two primary system in which the two highest vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party, likely Democratic cakewalks abound further down the ballot after Tuesday’s election.
So why is it so rare in California, which hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006 and where Democratic voters outnumber registered Republicans almost two-to-one, to put two Democrats on the ballot in the general election?
For all its political reputation as the left coast, California is simply not overwhelmingly Democratic enough to regularly advance two Democrats to the general election, said Andrew Sinclair, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College who has studied the effects of California’s top two.
With Democratic candidates regularly earning roughly 60% of the statewide vote, the electorate is sufficiently left-leaning to make the outcome of Democrat-versus-Republican general elections fairly predictable. But Democrats don’t make up quite enough of the vote share to push two Democratic candidates through the open primary except in somewhat unusual circumstances, he said.
“After about 60% to 65% Democratic vote share, it starts to get much more likely to get D-on-D races,” he said. In recent statewide races, the percentage of votes cast for the Democratic candidate has hovered around 60%, “right in the electoral dead zone,” said Sinclair.
The promise of top two
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
California’s unusual “top two” election system puts every candidate on the same primary ballot; the first and second place winners progress to the general election. The idea, approved by voters in 2010, was advertised as an engine of both political moderation and more meaningful choice. Both the Democratic and Republican parties were opposed.
Proponents argued that pulling candidates out of a purely partisan primary system would encourage them to appeal to voters across the ideological spectrum, rather than just the party base.
Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks during an event at the Sutter Club hosted by the Sacramento Press Club on Nov. 17, 2023.
(
Miguel Gutierrez Jr.
/
CalMatters
)
The new voting scheme would “change the dysfunctional political system and get rid of the paralysis and the partisan bickering” in California politics, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the proposition, said at the time.
In districts where one party dominates the field, allowing multiple candidates from that same party to compete was meant to make general elections competitive.
But if current election results hold — and with so many ballots still left to count, they may not — Californians don’t appear likely to see many competitive statewide races in November.
In Tuesday’s races for lieutenant governor, attorney general, controller and treasurer, a series of high-profile, well-financed Democrats are competing against Republicans who range from long- to longer-shot. In congressional contests in West Los Angeles and Napa Valley, where upstart progressives challenged moderate incumbents, the upstarts appear to have been boxed out, leaving the two veteran Democratic representatives, Mike Thompson and Brad Sherman, to face ill-fated Republicans.
A notable exception is the insurance commissioner’s race, in which two Democrats — Jane Kim and Ben Allen — hold the two top spots. The 2018 lieutenant governor’s race was also a Dem-on-Dem contest. It’s happened a few times in U.S. Senate races. But in most cases, a reversion to the polarized partisan norm is the rule.
That’s in part thanks to the primary electorate itself.
Fewer voters tend to turn out in June elections, and those who do tend to be committed partisans prepared to vote for one party or another. Though the top-two system is officially nonpartisan, Democratic voters treat it like a partisan primary, herding around the person they consider the strongest representative of their party, with Republicans doing the same, said Eric McGhee, a political researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California.
There may be a handful of “pure independents in the middle” who will swing between parties, moderating the outcome and potentially crossing party lines to put a centrist over the top.
But such voters are rare — especially in June.
Case in point: Matt Mahan, the moderate Democratic mayor of San Jose who ran for governor criticizing “extremism on both sides.” With his focus on pocketbook issues and promises to limit his own party’s state spending, Mahan was the “poster child” for a top-two system designed for “all those so-called people who are going to come to the middle,” said Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio.
“He got 4%,” said Maviglio, a top-two critic who voted for Mahan. “Voters are partisan, at the end of the day.”
Does the system create more moderates?
Californians are much more likely to see same-party general election contests in local races, where an individual district is more likely than the state as a whole to be overwhelmingly dominated by one party.
In congressional races in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento and across Los Angeles and in legislative races in liberal enclaves across California, two Democrats are on track to head to November.
USC political science professor Christian Grose said over the last decade, about a third of legislative general election races have been between two members of the same party.
Removing the choice between parties from the general election can have benefits like allowing voters to choose based on true policy differences or perceptions of competence rather than simply siding with a party, he said. But it can also invite voters to make choices based on "things not related to governance," like gender or race.
In a 2020 paper, Grose found that congressional candidates in top-two states have an incentive to tack toward the center, suggesting the top-two system works as intended whether or not the candidates end up competing in a same-party general election.
And in a newly created purple district that runs northeast of Sacramento, former Republican turned independent Rep. Kevin Kiley appears to have claimed first place in his race. Running without official party backing may be easier under a nonpartisan primary system.
Shutouts and cynical games
There are obvious downsides.
Tom Charron, co-founder of the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition, says the top-two primary system is vulnerable to “cynical gaming” in which one candidate boosts the candidate they consider easier to beat in the general election.
Newsom did that in 2018 by tacitly steering Republican voters toward Republican John Cox, whom he viewed as a weaker opponent than fellow Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa.
Likewise, in the 2024 primary, a super PAC backing Democratic U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff put millions of dollars behind Republican candidate Steve Garvey, undercutting Democratic former Rep. Katie Porter’s chances.
Another possible problem popped up early in the life of the reform. In 2012, the first cycle after voters approved the top two, four Democrats crowded into a race to represent San Bernardino in Congress. Two Republicans did the same. The Democrats ended up slicing up the left-of-center vote so thinly that the Republicans won the top two spots, despite Democrats holding a modest voter registration edge.
A more egregious example took place 10 years later when too many Republican candidates vying to represent a deeply conservative state Senate district east of Fresno divided the GOP vote, leaving Democrats in the top two.
That perverse outcome was top of mind for many Democratic voters earlier this year when a glut of Democrats running for governor threatened to leave the top two spots to Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Bianco.
'In some sense, the Democratic Party did everything they possibly could to make (a shutout) happen.'
— Andrew Sinclair, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College
With Becerra and fellow Democrat Tom Steyer well ahead of Bianco in the vote count, the shutout didn’t happen, showing how unlikely it was, said Claremont McKenna’s Sinclair.
“In some sense, the Democratic Party did everything they possibly could to make (a shutout) happen,” Sinclair said. He pointed to a “low-quality field of candidates” likely to divide the vote evenly, the abrupt exit of front-runner Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and the failure of the party or any of its California luminaries to endorse anyone.
If nothing else, the fear among highly engaged Democratic voters may have led a decisive number to vote strategically to avoid a shutout, Sinclair said.
Changes on the way?
Even though it was eventually averted, the prospect of a Republican governor in California in 2026 has led some to reconsider the top two.
Maviglio has filed a proposed ballot measure to repeal the top-two system and return to partisan primaries.
"The fact that there are any (same-party general elections) is simply undemocratic," Maviglio said. "People have the choice between only one party, like they're in the Soviet Union?"
In theory, Democrat-on-Democrat races are supposed to give voters a choice between distinct ideological options within the same party — a business-backed moderate, say, and a Bernie-boosting progressive.
In practice, voters are quite bad at making such distinctions, said McGhee at PPIC.
“The evidence we have of how voters view these contests is that they don't have a clue who the moderate or the liberal is,” he said. “It’s always a good bet that voters are way way way less tapped into the nuances of what’s going on than you are if you’re interested in politics.”
Others are pushing for a third option — ranked-choice voting.
Charron, with the Ranked Choice Voting Coalition, said his group is advocating for California to move toward an Alaska-style voting system in which the top four or five primary finishers advance to a ranked-choice general election.
Ranked choice allows voters to rank their candidates by preference. If a voter’s top choice doesn’t receive enough votes to win, their vote goes to their second preference, then third, and so on. Several California cities already use it for mayoral contests, including Oakland and San Francisco.
Charron said the system encourages a more diverse field of candidates and gives voters more choice, since few would worry about being a “spoiler” for a fellow party member.
In May, the nonpartisan nonprofit Independent Voter Project helped launch a group aimed at bringing ranked choice to California via a constitutional amendment that could go before voters in 2028.
“It's very exciting for us right now that these conversations are coming up because of some of the risks that we've seen in this primary season, in particular,” said Charron.
U.S. employers added jobs for the third month in a row in May, according to a report Friday from the Labor Department. Job gains for March and April were also revised significantly higher.
A closer look: Restaurants and bars added 48,000 jobs last month as summer approached, while construction companies and local governments were also hiring. Healthcare, which has been a steady source of employment gains, added another 35,000 jobs.
The labor market is finding its footing.
U.S. employers added jobs for the third month in a row in May, according to a report Friday from the Labor Department. Job gains for March and April were also revised significantly higher.
Restaurants and bars added 48,000 jobs last month as summer approached, while construction companies and local governments were also hiring. Healthcare, which has been a steady source of employment gains, added another 35,000 jobs.
Banks and insurance companies, meanwhile, cut jobs. The financial sector overall cut 22,000 jobs in May.
Loading...
Overall, the report shows hiring has picked up steam this spring after anemic job growth last year. Over the last three months, employers have added an average of 188,000 jobs each month.
Meanwhile, the workforce grew slightly in May as 83,000 people began working or looking for work, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%.
Despite the uptick in hiring, employers are not having to offer big wage increases to attract workers. Average wages in May were up just 3.4% from a year ago. That's likely not enough to keep pace with inflation — with prices for the 12 months ending in April up 3.8%.
Loading...
Prices have been rising rapidly since the U.S. launched its war with Iran just over three months ago. And now, with signs that the job market is stabilizing, the Federal Reserve, under new chair Kevin Warsh, is likely to focus its attention on getting inflation under control.
That makes it unlikely the central bank will cut interest rates any time soon, despite pressure to do so from President Trump.
The Labor Department is set to report on May inflation next week, providing Fed policymakers with another key data point ahead of its next policy meeting in mid-June.
Mariana Dale
explores and explains the forces that shape how and what kids learn from kindergarten to high school.
Published June 5, 2026 5:00 AM
Martha, Natalia and Jose voted for the first time in the 2026 primary Tuesday.
(
Mariana Dale
/
LAist
)
Topline:
California voters under 34 are on track to make up a larger share of the electorate compared to the 2022 primary, according to an analysis of ballots counted so far by Political Data Intelligence.
The backstory: Young people vote, but at lower rates than older voters. Kamy Akhavan studies civic engagement at USC and says that the U.S.'s increasingly partisan political system may turn off youth voters. “They're looking for solutions. They're not seeing it come from politics,” Akhavan said. “So many of them are just tuning out from a system that is not serving them.”
The numbers (so far): As of Wednesday, voters 18-34 account for 13% of all ballots counted. That’s a 3% increase from the 2022 primary at this time. One factor is that there are nearly 2 million more people in this age group registered than in 2022. Paul Mitchell, a vice president at Political Data Intelligence, said this is due in part to a change in policy that automatically re-registers California voters when they move from county-to-county. “Young people have benefited from their registrations staying alive when they are constantly shuffling around the state,” Mitchell said.
What's next: There are still many ballots left to count. Mitchell said the share of ballots returned by young people increased closer to Election Day. ”Those late voters were very heavily young people,” Mitchell said. “That could mean…if this pattern continues, a higher final turnout for young people.”
Read on… to see what motivated high school students to vote for the first time in South L.A.
Young California voters are on track to make up a larger share of the 2026 primary electorate compared to the 2022 primary, according to an analysis of ballots counted so far by Political Data Intelligence.
As of Thursday, voters aged 18–34 accounted for 13% of all ballots counted. That’s a 4 percentage point increase from the 2022 primary at this time.
One factor is that there are nearly 2 million more people in this age group registered than in 2022.
Paul Mitchell, a vice president at PDI, said this is due in part to a change in policy that automatically re-registers California voters when they move from county-to-county.
“Young people have benefited from their registrations staying alive when they are constantly shuffling around the state,” Mitchell said.
Yet, the returns show that while more young people are voting, their turnout rate is still slightly lower than in 2022. (There’s a longstanding trend of young people voting at lower rates than older voters.)
Mitchell said that may change by the time all the ballots are counted.
”Those late voters were very heavily young people,” Mitchell said. “That could mean… if this pattern continues, a higher final turnout for young people.”
High school seniors vote for the first time in South L.A.
Among those late voters was a group of students at South L.A.’s Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School. About 40 seniors walked with their teachers Tuesday afternoon to a Washington Park vote center to cast a ballot for the first time. Nearly two dozen additional students signed up as poll workers.
The school’s government and economics teacher, Joel Snyder, has made civic engagement a key part of the curriculum since the school opened in 2006.
“ I think about how to make the pitch to them that democracy is important in their lives and is a public good,” Snyder said.
Here’s what the students said motivated them to vote, edited for length and clarity. LAist is not publishing their last names because some discuss the immigration status of their family members.
Jose, senior at Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School.
(
Mariana Dale
/
LAist
)
I have immigrant parents, they aren't able to vote, but I see that my sister's able to vote since she is older, and also my older brother — and that motivated me to vote because I wanna do for what's right for our state and our country… I think sometimes it’s just hard having your own opinion on your own votes, and it is hard that people will have an opinion on whoever you vote [for], but at the end of the day, you're doing what's right for you, and that's all that matters. — Jose
Katherine, a senior at Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School.
(
Mariana Dale
/
LAist
)
I felt like me voting was helping my community in a way. Some issues that are really important to me is that of ICE. Honestly, when the ICE raids were happening, I was really afraid for a lot of people in my community because it would stop a lot of people from going outside and just traveling the world how they're supposed to. — Katherine
Natalia, senior Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School.
(
Mariana Dale
/
LAist
)
I t's really important that we have a representative who hears all our voices and our struggles and is able to implement them… People don't like to come to these areas because they consider it dangerous. But obviously we live here. We should look out for our community and try to make it safer for everyone, not just for the people who are passing by, but for us who are living here. — Natalia
Martha, senior at Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School.
(
Mariana Dale
/
LAist
)
I wanna make sure that I actually use, like, the power I [get] as a citizen, and I wanna make sure that others also feel influenced to actually use their power and vote… My message would just be you have a voice, make sure you use it, and that just know that other people are also counting on you, like your family and your friends. And it might be nerve-wracking, but after you do it for the first time, it's just go with the flow. — Martha
A group of students waits for their turn to vote at Washington Park in the Florence Graham neighborhood.
(
Mariana Dale
/
LAist
)
At first I was skeptical about it. I didn't wanna vote, because I was like ‘my voice doesn't really matter.’ But at the final moment, I decided to vote because I seen my friends vote, and I wanted to vote with them, and also because I wanted to change, like, the way my community and where I live works… One thing I wanna see change is the homelessness problem because it's gotten too crazy where I live. — Ivan
Keep up with LAist.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
Destiny Torres
is LAist's general assignment reporter and brings you the top news you need for the day.
Published June 4, 2026 6:23 PM
(
Patrick T. Fallon
)
Topline:
California is notoriously slow at counting ballots, which means it may take a while before voters have results for some significant races. A big one is the L.A. mayor's race with Nithya Raman gaining some ground on Spencer Pratt in the race for second place. But there are five other races to pay close attention to.
What are the races?
L.A. City Council, District 9
L.A. County Sheriff
L.A. County Measure ER
OC Board of Supervisors, District 5
U.S. House, District 32
Read on: For a breakdown on what's happening as more ballots get counted.
California is notoriously slow at counting ballots, which means it may take a while before voters have results for some significant races. A big one is the L.A. mayor's race with Nithya Raman gaining some ground on Spencer Pratt in the race for second place.
Jose Ugarte maintains his lead ahead of Estuardo Mazariegos as of Thursday night. The two leave four other Latino candidates far behind in this race.
For the first time since 1963, L.A.'s District 9 will not be represented by a Black councilmember.
L.A. County Sheriff
Incumbent Robert Luna and former sheriff Alex Villanueva are holding on to their places in the two top spots. Luna maintains a significant lead — about 20 percentage points — over Villanueva.
If you're getting déjà vu, that's because the two went head-to-head once before in the 2022 General Election.
The increase was expected to have generated $1 billion to backfill funding gaps left by federal cuts to Medi-Cal.
Orange County Board of Supervisors, District 5
Incumbent Katrina Foley is still falling just short of regaining her top spot from Diane Dixon. Unless Dixon receives more than 50% of the votes, the two will face off in the November election.
U.S. House, District 32
Incumbent Rep. Brad Sherman and Republican Larry Thompson are likely to square off in November for the race to represent District 32 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Sherman maintains a tight lead.
District 32 spans from the western San Fernando Valley to the coastal cities.
About the vote count
For LAist's charts showing vote counts, we get numbers directly from the L.A. County and Orange County registrars of voters for local races. Totals are updated on our site as soon as possible after the registrars provide new tallies. For statewide races, counts come from the California Secretary of State's Office.
Keep in mind that, in tight races particularly, the winner may not be determined for days or weeks after election day. That's because early voting and mail-in ballots have fundamentally reshaped how votes are counted and when election results are known. In L.A. County, for example, updates on the counting are expected to continue through June 26. After the polls closed on election night, we had updates to the official count regularly into the early hours Wednesday. After that, updates have been daily around 5 p.m. Expect updates on the following days: June 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 24 and 26. Final results must be certified by July 10.
Our priority during the vote count will be sharing outcomes and election calls only when they have been thoroughly checked and vetted by journalists. To that end, we will report when candidates concede and otherwiserely on NPR and the Associated Press for race calls (before official results). We will not report the calls or projections of other news outlets. You can find more about NPR's and the AP's process for counting votes and calling races here, here and here.
If your mail-in ballot has any problems (like a missing or mismatched signature), your county registrar must contact you to give you a chance to fix it.
Official results
The California Secretary of State's Office is required to certify the final vote tallies by July 10, marking the official end of the 2026 primary election.
LAist's Voter Game Plan will be back in the fall to help you prepare for the Nov. 3 general election.
Ask us a question
What questions do you have about this election?
You ask, and we'll answer: Whether it's about who's funding the campaigns or how to track your ballot, we're here to help you understand the 2026 election
Erin Stone
has covered the L.A. fires and their aftermath since Day One.
Published June 4, 2026 6:09 PM
Workers with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spray hydro seedling over a cleared property in Altadena in April 2025.
(
Brian Feinzimer
/
LAist
)
Topline:
A potent carcinogen may have spread to communities as far as nine miles downwind of the Eaton and Palisades fire burn zones during debris clean-up, according to a new peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature.
Why it matters: UCLA and UC Davisscientists measured nanoparticles of hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, during fire debris cleanup, and computer models show the carcinogen may have spread downwind.
Read on ... for more on why experts say the study is not reason to panic, and how it may inform protections for future fire survivors.
A potent carcinogen may have spread to communities as far as nine miles downwind of the Eaton and Palisades fire burn zones during debris clean-up, according to a new peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature.
A team of researchers has been studying the air pollution effects of clearing the remains of more than 16,000 homes and businesses destroyed in the 2025 fires.
Scientists with UCLA and UC Davis drove through Altadena and Pacific Palisades in an electric vehicle with mobile air monitors periodically over about seven months after the fires. They measured nanoparticles of hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, within the cleanup areas. Paint, auto parts, electronics and fire retardant are possible sources, but more study is needed to understand where the chromium came from, the researchers said. They also detected other airborne metals, including lead and arsenic.
The researchers used computer modeling to understand how far those airborne particles may have spread beyond the immediate burn zones. About 3 million people live in the areas that could have been exposed, according to the scientists’ models.
The highest concentrations of nanoparticles — particles less than 1/1,000th the width of a human hair — were measured in March 2025, about two months into the debris removal effort in both burn zones. But the toxicity declined as time passed.
“ The good news is that some of those toxic metals, they were converted back to less toxic forms over time,” said Michael Kleeman, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis and lead author of the study. “So in the months after the wildfire, the threat from this sort of decayed away.”
In communities outside the burn zones, concentrations diluted further as the plume moved downwind, Kleeman said. By eight months after the fires, the researchers measured that heavy metal concentrations had fallen to background levels for the L.A. basin.
The research highlights how “even after the fire is over, the danger isn't gone,” Kleeman said.
An aerial view of properties cleared of fire debris in Altadena in July 2025.
(
Mario Tama
/
Getty Images
)
Cleared lots in the Palisades Fire burn zone stretch into the distance.
(
Qian Weizhong
/
VCG / Associated Press
)
How concerned should you be?
The researchers and outside experts emphasized to LAist that the study’s findings do not prove widespread contamination of homes, businesses or the environment.
“ I hope we can get a message of caution out there, but not panic,” said Kleeman.
Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University post-disaster environmental risk researcher who was not involved in the study, said the research is far from proving what, if any, harm to human health could occur, especially because no indoor testing was carried out.
“Drawing a line from street-level detections to indoor exposure, without confirming that the [chromium-6] outdoors entered homes at levels posing health risks, is a significant leap,” he said.
Whelton, who carried out soil testing in the L.A. fire burn scars, said he worries the paper could needlessly sow fear because so many open questions remain. He has argued for funding and establishing more comprehensive contaminant testing at the individual household level in the wake of such destructive fires — the most definitive way to know your personal risk.
“The bottom line: detecting nanoparticles in outdoor air does not mean harm occurred to 3-plus million people living and working inside buildings,” Whelton told LAist.
The average levels of chromium-6 detected in the air during debris cleanup in March were well below limits set for workplaces by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, but above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency long-term screening levels for homes, according to the study.
Still, those comparisons are imperfect because the particles measured were far smaller than what’s used for current health standards — meaning they can more easily travel throughout the body, Kleeman said.
“We don't know for sure what the concerning level should be,” he said.
Workplace standards, for example, are set for healthy adults working eight-hour shifts, “rather than for sensitive populations such as young children, pregnant individuals, older adults, or people with chronic illness,” said Jun Wu, an environmental health scientist and professor at UC Irvine’s School of Public Health, who also was not involved with the study.
More comprehensive study is needed to get at what true exposures may, or may not, have occurred, Kleeman and outside researchers emphasized.
“This is a single, novel finding based on limited sampling, with the downwind reach estimated by modeling,” Wu said, “so broader monitoring is the natural next step.”
Where the nanoparticles may have spread
The broadest potential plume was from the Palisades Fire, spreading as far as the southern San Fernando Valley to the north and Beverly Hills and West Hollywood to the east. Kleeman said computer modeling of prevailing winds show the plume being pushed toward central L.A.
“Santa Monica, Venice and moving toward central L.A. took the brunt of the plume,” Kleeman said.
Prevailing winds didn’t spread the plume quite as far in communities near the Eaton Fire, with modeling showing northeast Pasadena being the primary community affected.
A map from the study showing the ZIP codes where a airborne chromium-6 may have spread during debris removal.
(
Courtesy UCLA / UC Davis
)
Many unknowns remain about the public health effects of catastrophic fires in urban areas — and how far those risks may drift beyond the burn zone.
“More work is needed to understand how widespread and persistent these particles were, how exposure varied by location and cleanup activity, and what the health risks were for nearby residents,” said Sina Hasheminassab, an air quality researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was not involved in the study.
How to protect yourself during and after a major urban wildfire
Debris cleanup workers and residents in or within nine miles downwind of the burn zones in the year after the L.A. fires should be mindful of any new health symptoms and report them to a doctor. You can also find resources, report symptoms or ask questions via the ongoing LA Fire Health Study.
Steps to take to reduce contaminant exposure during or in the wake of an urban wildfire:
Your HVAC system should have MERV-13 or higher HEPA filters.
Standalone air purifiers should have HEPA and carbon filters.
If there’s a risk of exposure to smoke or particles from active fire or debris cleanup, wear an N95, KN95 or equivalent mask outside. Keep windows and doors closed at home. Consider putting wet towels or more secure types of sealants along sills and doorframes to help prevent smoke or dust getting in.
Wipe down dusty areas with wet cloth to prevent particles from becoming airborne.
Don’t bring potentially contaminated clothing or shoes indoors.
The surest way to understand your personal risk of exposure to toxins is to get your home’s air and soil tested. Here are some resources to learn more about that and what to test for:
Post Fire’s expert Q&As answer many common questions from fire survivors.
The L.A. Fire Health Study also has these resources.
Purdue University has recorded webinars for various aspects of fire recovery, as well as helpful information for soil testing here and here.
Additionally, the study raises questions about how to better protect people’s health not only during, but also after destructive urban fires, said Wu.
“Much of our attention goes to the smoke during the active fire, but this study points to the cleanup and recovery phase,” she said. “This time window deserves just as much attention as the fire period itself.”
For example, some survivors whose homes survived never left during debris removal — some cited concerns about not being able to afford another place to stay without upfront insurance payouts, as well as worries about looting.
The study notes that workers in the burn zones faced the highest risk.
“Based on our field observations, many workers in the debris cleanup zone did not wear masks despite California requirements to provide approved air purifying respirators to workers,” the researchers wrote.
Crews remove wildfire debris on hillside property in Pacific Palisades last year. Researchers note in a recent study that many workers they saw weren't using respiratory protection.
(
Charles Delano
/
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
)
Survivors push for policy to protect public health after wildfires
Nicole Maccalla’s home in Altadena was damaged but ultimately survived the Eaton Fire. She and her two teenagers moved back in nearly six months after the fire, while debris removal was ongoing. Her daughter’s school nearby was also reopened just a month after the fires.
“ I know I was exposed. I know my kids were exposed,” Maccalla told LAist. “I'm not really sure what to do with that, to be honest.”
“Our entire community is really now guinea pigs,” she added. “It’s deeply concerning.”
Nicole Maccalla, with her kids, Seb and AJ. Their Altadena home survived the Eaton Fire but suffered serious smoke damage.
(
Courtesy Nicole Maccalla
)
Maccalla, a data scientist and member of Eaton Fire Residents United, helped guide ongoing research by scientists like Kleeman to better understand the levels of contamination after the fires.
She said this study is a warning.
“ I think in the future, we need to move a little slower in fire recovery. The goal should not be speed. The goal should be health and safety,” Maccalla said. “We rushed it, and I hope that we learn from this mistake.”
She and fellow survivors see some hope in a new bill they helped inform. AB 1642, or the Wildfire Environmental Safety and Testing Act, is making its way through the California Legislature.
The bill, written by Assemblymember John Harabedian, would establish the first statewide health standards for testing and cleaning up debris in and outside standing homes, schools, businesses and other structures after a wildfire.
Maccalla urged fellow survivors worried about the results of this study to prioritize caring for their mental and physical wellbeing.
“The stress of all of this is just going to be an added component that will be another contributor to us getting sick long term,” she said. “So many of us are still in survival mode. It's time, I think, to start taking care of ourselves a little bit.”
