Parents want to know: After wildfires, is my child's school safe and clean?

While some schools in or near wildfire evacuation zones have reopened, others are undergoing a more extensive remediation process.

There are no state laws or regulations that mandate specific cleaning or testing before schools located near wildfires can reopen.

Instead, schools must interpret guidance from multiple local, state and federal agencies — and that information has not reached all parents.

Andrew Ferrone is the parent of two children who attend Canyon Charter Elementary School in Santa Monica, a Los Angeles Unified School that remained closed as of Friday.

“We increasingly hear that the return to school is imminent,” Ferrone said Tuesday. “But we have very little visibility into exactly the protocols that have been taken and any level of assurance that our kids will be safe.”

The Los Angeles County Office of Education, along with California’s Department of Education, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and Office of Emergency Services, declined LAist’s requests for an interview.

“When to re-occupy a school is ultimately a local decision, made by the district and their respective public health department since each county may have different recommendations for air quality,” Department of Education spokesman Scott Roark wrote in an email.

LAist reviewed statements from these agencies and guidance from state and federal agencies, as well as interviewed an industrial hygienist to understand the steps a district may take to safely reopen after the initial danger from the fires has passed, and other things families should know about the cleaning process.

What’s needed at each individual school depends on several factors, including proximity to the fires and ongoing weather conditions.

What are the risks from smoke and ash?

The smoke and ash from wildfires creates dangerous air quality, especially for sensitive groups that include children and pregnant people.

The fires propel tiny particles, called PM2.5, into the air. Those particles can get into the lungs and cause health issues ranging from bronchitis to cancer. The fires can also release chemicals from plastics, lead, asbestos and other toxic substances.

“Wildfires pose lingering health risks, both immediately after the events and for months afterward, particularly during remediation and debris removal efforts,” said Jessica Yu, a research scientist at Stanford University Woods Institute for the Environment, via email.

What questions can parents ask their local school?

Each school's situation is unique. Here are some questions to ask your principal, school and district officials as campuses plan to reopen.

• What was the initial condition of the campus? 
• How has the school been cleaned? 
• What kind of testing has been done? Did the district hire an outside company to oversee or assist in the cleaning? 
• Did those companies create a report about the condition of the school? Will it be shared publicly? 
• What are your ongoing plans for cleaning? 
• How will the school monitor air quality? 

Initial condition: Was your school close to a fire?

Industrial hygienist Michelle Rosales said the level of cleaning, testing and restoration needed depends on how severely the campus was affected.

“Some schools, they had the fire come up all the way to the property, and maybe there's actual fire damage or heat damage,” Rosales said. “That would obviously require a more extensive remediation process.”

Rosales helped develop plans to clean up schools after the 2018 Woolsey Fire, and said there are other factors besides proximity to consider. Older buildings may let in more smoke and ash compared with newer ones. Wind and other weather conditions can determine how much debris settles on a campus.

The first step is to visually inspect the campus — inside and out — to see where ash and other debris have accumulated. A smoky smell can also indicate contamination.

How have schools been cleaned?

Several federal and state agencies have guidance for what schools should do.

“Every surface of the space that was exposed to smoke will need to be cleaned,” reads a wildfire smoke guide for public health officials created by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and several other state and federal agencies.

All ash should be removed before students return to campus. Guidelines for cleaning include:

• Wipe down surfaces with mild detergents. This includes the tops of bookshelves, walls, windows, doors and cabinets.  
• Vacuum with machines equipped with high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters. These filters help prevent smoke and ash particles from reentering the air.
• Shampoo, or in some cases, replace carpets. 
• Inspect ventilation ducts and clean if needed.  The wildfire smoke guide notes, “Often the building ductwork for the heating and cooling system will not be an issue because in many cases the power goes out during fire events and the AC systems do not circulate smoke- and ash-filled air through the ductwork for very long.”
• Replace air filters. Filters rated MERV-13 or higher are more effective at trapping particles.
• Remove smoky odors with the help of carbon filters. The use of ozone generators to remove smells is not recommended. “Many of the chemicals that are broken up by ozone can produce byproducts that are also dangerous to health,” reads the wildfire smoke guide. 
• Consider hiring professional cleaners and consultants; the latter may be known as industrial hygienists or environmental quality consultants. 

Outdoors:

• Remove debris and ash. Avoid leaf blowers because they resuspend ash in the air. 
• Clean playgrounds, lunch areas and drinking fountains. 
• If ash settles on school gardens, replace soil and throw away affected crops. 
• Replace sandbox sand — it cannot be cleaned. 

What about testing?

Some schools may consider additional testing.

Rosales said one common test is called particle identification and can flag the presence of char, ash and soot in the dust and debris.

 ”There's a lot of stuff in there, but it doesn't necessarily mean we have to sample for every potential contaminant to tell you whether or not your property was impacted,” Rosales said.

Rosales said testing for a specific substance, for example asbestos, is not always necessary. That’s because wildfire smoke can be made up of many things you don’t want around, and so most industrial hygienists will use the markers of smoke — char, ash, and soot — to indicate there may be contaminants here.

In other words: If schools get rid of the char, ash and soot, that also eliminates the contaminants.

There’s a case for particle identification testing before or after cleaning.

Beforehand, testing can show how far smoke and ash have penetrated the building.

“ But there's also times when people can just assume it got everywhere and start straight with the remediation and have the cleaning done,” Rosales said. “That is also acceptable.”

Rosales suggested schools have a professional, such as an industrial hygienist, inspect the campus afterward and potentially verify with sampling.

“If you want to go above and beyond, they could do the initial [testing], the remediation, and the post [testing],” Rosales said. “But again, we also know that we're in a time crunch and people are wanting to get back to their homes or back to their properties.”

A Los Angeles Unified School District spokesperson said in a statement that the district contracted with environmental consulting agencies Ninyo & Moore, Terraphase and NV5 to assess the safety of closed campuses.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education also connected Pasadena Unified with a professional remediation consultant.

Lessons from other fires: How long should monitoring continue?

“Even when the fires are done, the wind from all the burned debris is going to move ash and particulates throughout the surrounding areas,” Rosales said.

Factors that shaped the initial impact from the fires — including proximity to the burn zone, weather and facility age — will also influence the level of ongoing cleaning and testing needed.

In Lahaina, school officials monitored the air quality and tested surfaces for about six months after schools reopened in the wake of an August 2023 wildfire.

The blaze wrecked an elementary school, temporarily closed three other campuses, and displaced about 3,000 students on the northwest coast of Maui.

With some campuses blocks away from the burn zone, parents and educators raised concerns the demolition and ongoing clean-up in the burn zone could harm students. Some post-fire soil samples in Lahaina showed elevated levels of arsenic, lead and other toxic substances.

The Hawaii Department of Education worked with state and federal agencies to remove debris, clean, flush the water lines, restore power, test the soil for heavy metals and install air quality sensors before schools reopened in October.

“We wanted to assure a heavily traumatized community that we were doing all we could to be able to demonstrate that the environment was safe,” said Gary Bignami, who oversees the environmental services unit at the Hawaii Department of Education.

For example, Bignami said a network of school air quality monitors were connected to a software system that automatically texted principals and other administrators when there were elevated levels of potentially hazardous particles in the air.

Bignami said barbecuing and landscaping triggered the sensors, but there was no threat detected from blowing ash.

The Department of Education also contracted with an environmental consultant to perform bi-weekly tests on floors, window sills, and outdoor walkways for lead and arsenic and publish the results online.

Those wipe tests concluded in May 2024 after a substantial amount of the fire debris was cleared.

“The feeling was that the hazard potential was eliminated, that there is no residual ash that could be blowing to the schools and creating that hazard,” Bignami said

How can I keep my children safe?

Stay inside as much as possible when the air quality is bad, it smells smoky or ash is visible in the air.

"I know we all have PTSD from COVID, and that's the last thing anybody wants to hear is stay indoors," Rita Kachru, the chief of allergy and immunology at UCLA, told LAist. "But really, that is the best thing you can do."

While sheltering indoors, the EPA says:

• Keep doors and windows closed. 
• If you have central air, run the HVAC system. If you have a window unit, close the outdoor air damper. 
• Use a portable air cleaner. 
• Avoid activities that create more pollution such as burning candles, incense, fireplaces and cleaning with chemicals. 

If children must go outside:

• Wear an N95 respirator mask or one with an equivalent rating. 
• In the car, keep windows rolled up and recirculate the air. 

A few more tips:

• Remove shoes at the doorway to avoid tracking polluted ash and dust into the house. 
• Wash your child’s clothes, bedding and toys regularly.
• Continue to clean up ash that lands on indoor and outdoor surfaces at home. 
• Consider installing a sensor, such as those made by PurpleAir, to better understand the air quality in your home. 

Lingering smoke and ash can cause coughing, wheezing, dizziness and chest pain and irritate the skin, nose, throat and eyes. Report persistent symptoms to your child’s doctor.