Science
Forest Service reverses decades-long ban, allows wildfire firefighters to use N95 masks
The U.S. Forest Service has announced it is reversing a ban on federal firefighters wearing masks, and will give crews protective N95s as they battle increasingly intense fires across the nation.
For decades, the agency argued their use made firefighters vulnerable to heat exhaustion.
Other wildfire-prone nations, such as Canada, Greece and Australia, provide their firefighters with masks to prevent lung damage and smoke-related diseases, including cancer and organ failure — and have not seen increases in heat stroke among the crews.
The policy will have little bearing on local and regional urban firefighters, such as those in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County.
“We are actually encouraged to wear them,” said Jonathan Torres, engineer and spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
“There are chemicals that are unknown to us that are part of our work,” as buildings and infrastructure burn, he said. Masks provide some protection against harmful smoke particles and chemicals released when plastics, upholstery and synthetic building materials burn.
Earlier this week, the forest agency announced it has stockpiled roughly 80,000 N95 masks and will include them as part of the equipment they provide for large fires.
The decision came following a series of New York Times reports that detailed the Forest Service’s decades-long refusal to require, or even offer, masks to its crews, despite recommendations from state and federal health agencies, and a growing body of evidence that wildfire smoke is harming firefighter health.
“To provide masks, and even require masks, is an implicit admission of the health hazards of smoke,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, an organization that promotes the health and safety of wildland firefighters.
Ingalsbee and others say the Forest Service’s reluctance to encourage mask wearing was probably motivated by concern it would be admitting that smoke poses dangers and risks to its crews.
Research shows that firefighters have a 9% higher risk of getting a cancer diagnosis than the general public, and 14% higher risk of dying from cancer. Crews may be exposed to smoke and other toxins believed to cause cancer, such as benzene, phenols and heavy metals, while fighting fires.
Federal lawmakers are now working on safety legislation to protect federal and contract wildland firefighters, and have sent a series of letters to the Forest Service criticizing what they call its decades-long neglect.
Reports suggest that “that federal agencies are neglecting their duty to protect the health of wildland firefighters,” wrote Reps. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) and Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) in a letter to Forest Service chief Tom Schultz. “Neglecting the health of current firefighters will make future recruitment harder and leave our communities vulnerable.”
On Tuesday, they grilled Schultz at a House oversight meeting.
Huffman urged Schultz to warn workers about the dangers of smoke exposure: “Chief, do you feel like the Forest Service is doing everything that it can to make the safety risk of smoke inhalation known to firefighters?”
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection also announced Tuesday that the state will be funding research designed to examine how smoke and other occupational exposures may increase cancer risk in firefighters.
The research, which includes a collaboration among scientists and experts at UCLA, UC Davis and Cal Fire, is backed by nearly $9.7 million in state funding and will include 3,500 firefighters from departments across the state over a two-year period.
The study comes at a time when the Trump administration has made drastic cuts to cancer research.
“It’s California at our best: our world-class public universities teaming up with the women and men who put their lives on the line to protect others — all in an effort to improve health outcomes for all,” Newsom said in a statement.
The study will include a focus on the exposures and biological changes that occurred in firefighters who responded to the Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles.
Ingalsbee said that masks are not always appropriate when fighting fires — there are activities, such as traipsing up and down steep terrain when a N95 mask can get gummed up with debris and sweat and make it difficult for a firefighter to breathe.
However, he said the vast majority of the time, when firefighters are at their base camps, where it’s often smoky, or driving along dusty, sandy roads, masks could go a long way to protect their lungs, reducing exposure.
“There are times when masks are unsuitable and firefighters overheat and they are uncomfortable,” he said. “But there’s a lot of times when they’d be very useful in limiting their exposure. And maybe could save some lives.”
Our universe might be chock-full of cosmic wonder, but you can observe only a fraction of astronomical phenomena with the naked eye. Meteor showers, natural fireworks that streak brightly across the night sky, are one of them.
The latest observable meteor shower will be the Lyrids, which has been active since April 14 and is forecast to continue through April 30. The shower reaches its peak April 21 to 22, or Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
According to NASA, the Lyrids are one of the oldest known meteor showers, and have been enjoyed by stargazers for nearly 3,000 years. Their bright, speedy streaks are caused by the dusty debris from a comet named Thatcher. They appear to spring from the constellation Lyra, which right now can be seen in the eastern sky at night in the Northern Hemisphere.
The moon will be about 27 percent full tonight, appearing as a thick crescent in the sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
To get a hint at when to best watch for the Lyrids, you can use this tool, which relies on data from the Global Meteor Network. It shows fireball activity levels in real time.
And while you gaze at the heavens, keep an eye out for other stray meteors streaking across the night sky. Skywatchers are reporting that the amount of fireballs is double what is usually seen by this point in the year.
Where meteor showers come from
There is a chance you might see a meteor on any given night, but you are most likely to catch one during a shower. Meteor showers are caused by Earth passing through the rubble trailing a comet or asteroid as it swings around the sun. This debris, which can be as small as a grain of sand, leaves behind a glowing stream of light as it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Meteor showers occur around the same time every year and can last for days or weeks. But there is only a small window when each shower is at its peak, which happens when Earth reaches the densest part of the cosmic debris. The peak is the best time to look for a shower. From our point of view on Earth, the meteors will appear to come from the same point in the sky.
The Perseid meteor shower, for example, peaks in mid-August from the constellation Perseus. The Geminids, which occur every December, radiate from the constellation Gemini.
How to watch a meteor shower
Michelle Nichols, the director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, recommends forgoing the use of telescopes or binoculars while watching a meteor shower.
“You just need your eyes and, ideally, a dark sky,” she said.
That’s because meteors can shoot across large swaths of the sky, so observing equipment can limit your field of view.
Some showers are strong enough to produce up to 100 streaks an hour, according to the American Meteor Society, though you probably won’t see that many.
“Almost everybody is under a light-polluted sky,” Ms. Nichols said. “You may think you’re under a dark sky, but in reality, even in a small town, you can have bright lights nearby.”
Planetariums, local astronomy clubs or even maps like this one can help you figure out where to go to escape excessive light. The best conditions for catching a meteor shower are a clear sky with no moon or cloud cover, sometime between midnight and sunrise. (Moonlight affects visibility in the same way as light pollution, washing out fainter sources of light in the sky.) Make sure to give your eyes at least 30 minutes to adjust to seeing in the dark.
Ms. Nichols also recommends wearing layers, even during the summer. “You’re going to be sitting there for quite a while, watching,” she said. “It’s going to get chilly, even in August.”
Bring a cup of cocoa or tea for even more warmth. Then lie back, scan the sky and enjoy the show.
Where weather is least likely to affect your view
Storm systems sweep across the country in early spring, and some will be obscuring skies tonight. But there will still be plenty of areas with clear skies, particularly in parts of the central United States.
“The best spot is going to be in the Upper Midwest,” said Rich Bann, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa will offer especially good sky-viewing weather and a beach on the Great Lakes could be a nice spot to look up at the stars.
But don’t expect to view the show from Chicago, as Illinois could see some thunderstorms. The weather will be better in the Northern and Central Plains, particularly the eastern Dakotas.
High, wispy clouds are expected over the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic. But, Mr. Bann said, “you may be able to see some shooting stars through thin clouds.”
Clouds will be draped across much of the Southeast and the Northeast, though there could be some clearing in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. Remember, the meteors could be visible all night long. If you look outside and see clouds, try again later.
Catching the spectacle will be challenging across much of the West, particularly from Washington into Northern California, where a storm system is bringing rain and snow. That system will move east overnight.
There are likely to be some pockets of clear skies at times across southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southwest Utah, Mr. Bann said.
Amy Graff contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Amid growing national security concerns, the FBI said Tuesday that it has launched a broad investigation in the deaths or disappearances of at least 10 scientists and staff connected to highly sensitive research, including four from the Los Angeles area.
“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI’s announcement comes after the House Oversight Committee announced that it would investigate reports of the disappearance and deaths of the scientists, sending letters seeking information from the agencies involved in the federal inquiry as well as NASA, which owns the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where three of the missing or dead scientists worked.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets,” Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) wrote in the letters.
President Trump told reporters last week that he had been briefed on the missing and dead scientists, which he described as “pretty serious stuff.” He said at the time that he expected answers on whether the deaths were connected “in the next week and a half.”
Michael David Hicks, who studied comets and asteroids at JPL, was the first of the scientists who disappeared or died. He died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 59. No cause of death was disclosed.
A year later, JPL physicist Frank Maiwald died at 61, with no cause of death disclosed.
Two other Los Angeles scientists are part of the string of deaths and disappearances.
On June 22, 2025, Monica Jacinto Reza, a materials scientist at JPL, disappeared while on a hike near Mt. Waterman in the San Gabriel Mountains.
On Feb. 16, Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair was fatally shot on the porch of his Llano home. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department arrested Freddy Snyder, 29, in connection with the shooting. Snyder had been arrested in December on suspicion of trespassing on Grillmair’s property.
Snyder has been charged with murder.
There is no evidence at this point that the deaths and disappearances, which occurred over a span of four years, are connected.
A spokesperson for NASA, which owns JPL, said in a statement on X that the agency is “coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists.
“At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” agency spokesperson Bethany Stevens wrote. “The agency is committed to transparency and will provide more information as able.”
Representatives from Caltech, which manages JPL, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The sun had barely risen over the Pacific Ocean when a small motorboat carrying a team of Indigenous artisans and Mexican biologists dropped anchor in a rocky cove near Bahías de Huatulco.
Mauro Habacuc Avendaño Luis, one of the craftsmen, was the first to wade to shore. With an agility belying his age, he struck out over the boulders exposed by low tide. Crouching on a slippery ledge pounded by surf, he reached inside a crevice between two rocks. There, lodged among the urchins, was a snail with a knobby gray shell the size of a walnut. The sight might not dazzle tourists who travel here to see humpback whales, but for Mr. Avendaño, 85, these drab little mollusks represent a way of life.
Marine snails in the genus Plicopurpura are sacred to the Mixtec people of Pinotepa de Don Luis, a small town in southwestern Oaxaca. Men like Mr. Avendaño have been sustainably “milking” them for radiant purple dye for at least 1,500 years. The color suffuses Mixtec textiles and spiritual beliefs. Called tixinda, it symbolizes fertility and death, as well as mythic ties between lunar cycles, women and the sea.
The future of these traditions — and the fate of the snails — are uncertain. The mollusks are subject to intense poaching pressure despite federal protections intended to protect them. Fishermen break them (and the other mollusks they eat) open and sell the meat to local restaurants. Tourists who comb the beaches pluck snails off the rocks and toss them aside.
A severe earthquake in 2020 thrust formerly submerged parts of their habitat above sea level, fatally tossing other mollusks in the snail’s food web to the air, and making once inaccessible places more available to poachers.
Decades ago, dense clusters of snails the size of doorknobs were easy to find, according to Mr. Avendaño. “Full of snails,” he said, sweeping a calloused, violet-stained hand across the coves. Now, most of the snails he finds are small, just over an inch, and yield only a few milliliters of dye.
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