CANBERRA, Australia -- Fire alarms have been sounding in high-rise buildings across downtown Sydney and Melbourne as dense smoke from distant wildfires confuse electronic sensors. Modern government office blocks in the Australian capital Canberra have been closed because the air inside is too dangerous for civil servants to breathe.
The sun has glowed red behind a brown-shrouded sky for weeks over Australian metropolitan areas that usually rank high in the world's most livable cities indexes.
It's an unprecedented dilemma for Australians accustomed to blue skies and sunny days, and has raised fears for the long-term health consequences if prolonged exposure to choking smoke becomes the new summer norm. Similar concerns over smoke are emerging in other regions of the globe being affected by more fires tied to climate change, including the United States.
Sonia Connor, described the struggle of keeping her energetic 3-year-old daughter contained inside their Canberra house with windows and doors sealed by tape as the outside temperature exceeded 108 degrees Fahrenheit. It's a choice between air flow in stifling heat or keeping potentially toxic smoke out.
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Slovenian tennis player Dalila Jakupovic fell to her knees in a coughing fit Wednesday while competing in a qualifying match for the Australian Open in Melbourne.
"I've never experienced something like this," Jakupovic told Nine Network television. "We are used to pollution -- like, we play in China and more polluted countries -- but this smoke is something different that for sure we're not used to."
Canberra -- as well as Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne -- have at various times in recent weeks been rated as the most polluted cities in the world, although some argue that the industrial pollutants in places such as New Delhi are more dangerous than wood smoke.
The fires have claimed at least 28 lives since September, destroyed more than 2,600 homes and razed more than 25.5 million acres, mostly in New South Wales state. The area burned is larger than the state of Indiana.
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Victoria state increased its official fire death toll to five Wednesday when it reclassified the death of a fire management contractor in a traffic accident in November as a victim of the current wildfire crisis.
Hospital admissions have increased in the smoke-affected cities, with some patients suffering asthma for the first time in their lives. The government has responded by distributing 3.5 million free particle-excluding masks.
Acting Australian Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said he was discussing with the government launching a study of the long-term health implications of the wildfire smoke.
Bruce Thompson, president of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, is among the respiratory disease experts who predict increases in heart and lung diseases, as well as some cancers, if climate change makes prolonged exposure to wildfire smoke an annual phenomenon.
Thompson, who suffers itchy eyes and a running nose from smoke at home in Melbourne, said comparisons could be drawn between the current crisis and a wildfire that ignited coal in the open-cut Hazelwood mine near the town of Morwell in Victoria state in 2014. The fire burned for 45 days, blanketing Morwell and its 14,000 residents in thick smoke and coal dust.
That exposure is still taking tolls on the health of the Morwell community and the wider Latrobe Valley, particularly the young, Thompson said.
Brian Oliver, head of the Respiratory Molecular Pathogenesis at the University of Technology Sydney, likened prolonged and repeated exposure to such wildfire smoke to smoking cigarettes.
Oliver predicted increases in smoker diseases across Australia if the wildfire smoke becomes more common in a drier and hotter future.
A Section on 01/16/2020