After the LA fires, a new toxin is being found in homes: beryllium
Beryllium is a naturally occurring metal that becomes toxic when it's burned.
By Sarah McGrew
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ALTADENA, California (KCRA) — On June 6, it had been almost exactly six months since Claire Thompson and Tim Szwarc evacuated their home as the Eaton Fire tore through their community.
That Friday morning, they were back outside their house, but they hadn’t been living there since before January 7.
“We have a half-made puzzle on our kitchen table, and we haven’t touched anything really since,” Thompson said. “It’s a little eerie because when we evacuated, you know, it’s like walking back in time to what life was like on January 7.”
Claire, Tim and their neighbors grabbed what they could and headed for safety.
“I’m afraid it’ll never be safe to move back here,” Thompson said.
“Knowing that it’s contaminated and it’s sort of this place we can’t feel safe in is a very strange contrast,” Szwarc added.
Though the flames are long out, the ash is revealing a new threat.
Industrial hygienist Dawn Bolstad-Johnson has tested dozens of houses between Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Her company is Kaizen Safety Solutions. Bolstad-Johnson’s company is the one Thompson hired to test her house.
“It’s beyond anybody’s comprehension of how toxic this fire is,” Bolstad-Johnson said. “What we’re finding in homes is lead, lithium, cadmium, chromium, beryllium, cobalt. I mean, those are all toxic metals. Beryllium in of itself is pretty scary to me.”
Beryllium is a naturally occurring metal. It’s in cables and things like microwaves, headphones and vintage golf clubs. It’s also used in the aerospace and defense industries.
But when it burns, it becomes toxic, and exposure over time can cause serious health issues.
Bolstad-Johnson has found beryllium in nearly two dozen homes between Pacific Palisades and Altadena. It’s the first time in her decades as an industrial hygienist that it has even come back on her lab results after a wildfire.
“I’m out here testing and honestly, like, I’m not sure I want to keep testing knowing that there’s, that I’m walking into contamination with lithium, beryllium,” Bolstad-Johnson said. “But if you’re not testing for it, it’s like it’s not even there.”
It’s unclear just how many homes are contaminated.
The group Eaton Fire Residents United has been collecting information from homeowners who have had their homes tested. Of the 184 homes that shared results, only 52 were specifically tested for beryllium. About half of those tested positive for elevated levels.
As a solid on its own or as an alloy, beryllium doesn’t pose a risk. But if it burns or is ground up, the particles can attach to dust or ash, and even small amounts when inhaled can be toxic.
Dr. Lee Newman, a pulmonologist with the Colorado School of Public Health, has studied the effects of beryllium exposure on people.
“We definitely know that it can cause diseases other than the lung disease that is often referred to as chronic beryllium disease or berylliosis,” Dr. Newman said.
Chronic beryllium disease can be deadly and is certainly life-shortening, according to Newman.
The respiratory disease doesn’t occur overnight, but develops over months and years.
“Knowing that should make you more aware that if you develop symptoms of cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, one of the things your doctor needs to know is that you had a potential exposure to beryllium,” Newman said.
That exposure could become more common as wildfires become more urban.
Bolstad-Johnson pointed to “typical” wildfires that burn mostly biomass, compared to the Los Angeles fires in January that burned “hillsides of homes and more homes and more homes.”
“Every home is potentially contaminated. Some people aren’t getting tested, they don’t want to know. Some people don’t have the money to test. Some people are forced back into their homes,” Bolstad-Johnson said of the situation she’s seeing. “People shouldn’t be going in their homes without respiratory protection until they know what’s in there.”
Thompson and Szwarc are still waiting for their test results.
“We spent our whole 20s saving up to buy a house. This is our dream, to buy our own house,” Thompson said of the place she and her husband have called home for more than five years.
As they wait in limbo, they’ve watched that dream slowly become a nightmare.
“We’re going to try everything we can to, you know, remediate it and make it safe. But it’s not just our house that’s contaminated, it’s, you know, all of Altadena. It’s a public health issue at this point.”
This investigation was a collaboration with our partners at the San Francisco Chronicle. Click here to read the full investigation.
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