Farmworkers feed the country, but who protects them from wildfire smoke?

A recent video circulating on social media showed farmworkers in Ventura County picking strawberries under a blood-orange sky because of smoke from the Hughes Fire in northern Los Angeles County.

"That reddish light, there's something primal that — you really do — sort of your lizard brain recognizes that there's danger," says Elizabeth Strater, who is an organizer and national vice president for the United Farm Workers of America.

Oxnard, in Ventura County, isn't prone to wildfires, but it is "prone to being affected by wildfire smoke," Strater said.

Many people don't realize how close L.A. is to the state's agricultural region. Drive a little north of the county and all of a sudden you're surrounded by green fields, rows of produce and farmworkers.

As the Hughes Fire tore through northern L.A. County, thousands of farmworkers continued to pick strawberries, leafy greens and other produce in hazy smoke in Ventura County.

California has some of the strongest regulations in the nation to protect farmworkers from wildfire smoke. It's one of only three states, along with Oregon and Washington, that require employers to provide masks to workers when the air quality reaches unhealthy levels. But the fact that many farmworkers labored through the smoke of the Los Angeles fires underscores the limitations of California's laws, worker advocates say.

Plumes of smoke rise from the Hughes Fire near Castaic. That smoke wafted to Ventura County, where around 40,000 farmworkers labor in agricultural fields.

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Unhealthy air conditions

Parts of northern L.A. and Ventura counties had Air Quality Index (AQI) levels around 150 on Jan. 22 when the Hughes Fire erupted, turning the sky orange. But thousands of farmworkers continued to work in the fields.

Studies show that when AQI levels hover between 100 and 200 on a smoky day, that air pollution is like smoking a quarter to a half pack of cigarettes a day. Air quality is considered "good" when the AQI is below 50.

A new law that allows farmworkers to take sick days when the AQI reaches unhealthy levels took effect this year. But according to UFW spokesperson Antonio de Loera, workers feel the financial pressure to continue working during wildfires.

The Department of Industrial Relations, an extension of CAL/OSHA, says employers in California are legally required to provide N95 respirators to workers when the AQI reaches 150. But it remains unclear how many employers abide by the law, worker advocates say. The state of California doesn't have data about mask distribution by farmers.

The agency declined to be interviewed, but did provide a statement. Denisse Gómez, a spokesperson from the state's Department of Industrial Relations, says it has created worker safety and health regulations in wildfire regions and requires employers to protect workers from unhealthy air due to wildfire smoke and calls for specific training requirements.

"In California, it is illegal for employers to retaliate against workers for refusing to work in unsafe conditions, including in evacuation zones," the agency wrote.

Farmworkers typically work between eight to 10 hours a day outside. It's hard, physical work, so when it's smokey outside, workers are breathing in more smoke.

" They're working fast. They're trying to get all the produce into the bins because many of them are paid [at] a piece rate," says Michael Mendez, who teaches environmental policy and urban planning at UC Irvine. "The more that they're able to harvest and put in those bins, the more they're able to make money."

But working in wildfire smoke can quickly affect the body, causing headaches, lingering coughs and sore throats. According to the California Air Resources Board, wildfire smoke can worsen heart disease, asthma and lead to premature death.

Wildfire smoke carries tiny particles known as PM2.5, which can be harmful when inhaled.

According to Francesca Dominici from Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the long-term effects are unclear.

Dominici says long-term exposure to low-level PM2.5 from freeways or construction — what she calls "less toxic" — causes fluid in the lungs, which leads to coughing.

"We can anticipate, unfortunately, a repeated exposure to high and more toxic levels of PM2.5 will also have an adverse health impact on the health system," Dominici says.

The increasing toxicity of PM2.5 is linked to the fact that wildfires don't just burn forests anymore, but also cars, buildings and appliances. All those things are made of materials that are highly toxic when they burn. Since January, L.A. County has seen a series of catastrophic wildfires causing billions of dollars in damage that one company estimates is around $250 billion and leaving more than 10 million people in unhealthy air conditions for several days.\

A rush against the fire

As soon as the Hughes Fire erupted Jan.22, the United Farm Workers and other community groups knew they had to deploy thousands of N95 respirators to farmworkers in Ventura County.

The UFW scrambled to get help going. A mutual aid group answered the call, donating 20,000 respirators to help around 40,000 farmworkers laboring in wildfire smoke in cities including Oxnard, Camarillo and other agricultural hubs in the county.

The labor union quickly found a truck to take the masks from an L.A. warehouse to Ventura County. A group of around 100 volunteers well respected in the farmworker community helped to distribute between 150 and 200 N95s each to non-union represented workers around the county.

Strater says union workers receive masks at job sites, while nonunion workers often do not. Still, the workers are a tight-knit community and look out for one another, she says.

" These are folks without a social safety net," Strater says. "Even when you're under an evacuation warning, this is a group of people that's probably less likely to seek out support from a shelter, less likely to go to aid relief stations."

A firefighter looks toward Castaic Lake during the Hughes Fire.

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Associated Press

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Government falls short in helping farmworkers

Many farmworkers are already susceptible to developing asthma and other respiratory illnesses before a wildfire strikes, according to Mendez.

"There needs to be additional care, guidance and enforcement for these individuals that are at the front lines of this climate crisis and are continuing to work throughout these wildfires," he says.

The outlook for California wildfires is grim so far. The state has seen little rainfall this year, and early forecasts anticipate a warmer late spring and early summer. According to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, that could lead to an early "start" for fire season in Southern California — peak fire season can start as early as May and run through October. Climate change has made the planet hotter, with 2024 being the hottest year on record, and a warmer planet makes large destructive wildfires more likely.

According to Sonja Diaz, who co-founded the Latina Futures 2050 Lab, COVID-19 showed that the federal government could not deploy information, resources and care quickly enough at the rate that historically excluded communities needed.

She says that's why the trusted messengers for Black, Latino, Indigenous and other marginalized groups became community clinics, state hospitals, labor unions, nonprofits and mutual aid groups.

"In the aftermath of the fires and the devastation, there remains this continued thread that these entities — nongovernmental — are the ones able to deploy necessary relief, aid, support to meet people's basic needs," Diaz says. "So the government really needs to start looking at this sector as a partner, investing in it, recognizing that it is a necessary element for keeping residents safe, communities healthy and the economy moving."

Working with concern

Farmworkers are concerned about their health, says Jorge Toledano, a community organizer at Mixteco Indígena Community Organizing Project (MICOP), a nonprofit that helps Indigenous migrant communities.

" But they have to work to feed their families, to pay rent," Toledano says in Spanish. "They have no other choice but to work."

Toledano says the nonprofit received more than 5,000 masks during the Mountain Fire in Ventura County last fall. MICOP's  rapid response team immediately mobilized to distribute between 1,000 and 2,000 N95 respirators during the Hughes Fire.

The nonprofit uses Facebook and a radio station called Radio Indigena to broadcast in multiple Indigenous languages about the dangers of wildfire smoke, where to get N95s and how to wear them.

MICOP worked with other community organizations to create a smoke alert text system in 2019. Toledano says the organization is also educating workers to ask their employers for N95 masks when a wildfire breaks out.

"We don't know when there's going to be a fire; they happen so fast," Toledano says. "But it's the employer's obligation to provide masks."

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