Mike Joss is better acquainted with this summer’s wildfire smoke than most.
He spends three to four hours a day outside and walks an average of 30,000 steps for his business Perfect Paws Dog Training and Walking.
Health Canada and Environment Canada advises people without health conditions should reduce physical activity on days when the Air Quality Health Index reaches 7-plus, which indicates a high health risk.
Joss has asthma and emphysema.
It takes two weeks for his lungs to recover from severely smoky days, he said. Even when most people are unaffected by high smoke levels, he’s puffing on his inhaler 20 times a day. In Edmonton, every month this summer except June has had a stretch of days that have veered into the Air Quality Health Index’s 10-plus red zone.
“There were some days where my asthma was so bad it was 10 to 12 hours of having a straight asthma attack every day after I got home,” Joss said. “At the worst part of the summer I was down to 31 or 32 per cent lung capacity. If I’d cough a little bit, I was getting blackout spells. I would lose sensation in my body.”
Working outside, his mask gets hot and uncomfortable, turning brown over the course of the day. When he’s corralling up to 14 dogs at a time and avoiding potential dogfights, he said it can feel like “running a marathon while breathing through a juice straw.”
Dr. Stephen Field, a respirologist and clinical professor at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine, said days with particularly bad air quality have been problematic for his patients with lung conditions, but most will stay inside to avoid long exposures.
“With ongoing exposure, I think there will be some evidence of permanent [lung] damage,” he said.
He expects cases of lung damage will only get worse and more frequent as wildfires increase with climate change. And the danger isn’t just for people with lung conditions.
“Look at the example of firefighters. You have a group of individuals who start off healthy and ultimately are more likely to die at an early age than the rest of the population,” he said.
The risk is higher for people who spend large amounts of time outside, especially when doing vigorous activity.
Field said that he doesn’t have an answer for people who work outside.
“It’s a risk you can’t really obviate.”
For Joss, giving up his business is a non-starter.
While he admitted working a job indoors could ease the symptoms, he enjoys caring for and training dogs more than any of his previous jobs.
Two things keep him going, he said: his daughter, and the dogs.
“Dogs are always honest with you — they always show their true emotions,” he said.
“I took eight dogs and my kid to Jasper and BC this year because the dogs had never been before. Most people drop their dogs off with me when they want to go on vacation, and when I go on vacation, I take all the dogs."
