1/ Dilemma: Cooking & Wildfire Smoke
Whether your stove/oven is gas or electric, cooking can generate a lot of unhealthy indoor particulate matter. And gas stoves can generate large amounts of other harmful pollutants, including oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and more.
2/ As such, it is important to use your range hood exhaust fan while cooking. Some advice on range hoods here: indoor.lbl.gov/news/article/r….
But can using a range hood lead to greater exposure to wildfire? Answer = Yes.
3/ Range hoods can exhaust large volumes of air from your kitchen and home (thankfully in terms of cooking emissions). But when local ventilation is used to exhaust air to the outdoors your home becomes negatively pressurized relative to outdoors. So, ....
4/ Air is drawn into your home when local ventilation (exhaust is used). So, while your range hood fan protects you from harmful emissions from cooking, it's use exposes you to more of the harmful components of wildfire smoke.
5/ A solution is to minimize cooking on stove tops and ovens when wildfires are making outdoor air extremely unhealthy. Consider take-out delivery to your home from a local restaurant (which also helps them), microwaving of prepared foods, or more raw fruits and veggies.
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