Los Angeles Times | "A toxic metal stayed in the air for months after L.A. County fires”
The Los Angeles Times interviewed Drs. Michael Jerrett and Yifang Zhu about findings of hexavalent chromium after the 2025 Los Angeles County fires.
The Los Angeles Times interviewed Dr. Michael Jerrett and Dr. Yifang Zhu, both with the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, about research they co-authored into the presence of carcinogenic hexavalent chromium in the air after the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires.
“When it’s in this nanoparticle form, it basically invades the barrier of our lungs, going into our blood and gets into our circulation,” said Michael Jerrett, environmental health professor at the UCLA Fielding School. “That raises the specter that you’ve got a lot of potentially toxic materials that are going directly into people’s circulation, and from there it can go to their brains, all their organ systems, and affect their metabolism and immunological responses.”
Computer modeling suggested that microscopic particles of hexavalent chromium traveled six to nine miles downwind of the fire-ravaged communities, potentially exposing 3.4 million people from Santa Monica to Pasadena to the highly toxic compound for several months.
“I’m an (air pollution) scientist. I have seen so much L.A. pollution data. I have never seen something like this in my life,” said Yifang Zhu, a UCLA environmental researcher and co-author. “This is something very unique. It’s still a puzzle.”
