Dr Ron Cotterel

“Through year after year of drought and unprecedented heat, California has become a tinderbox, and so when fire season comes, the fires hit all through California and all up and down the West Coast. It’s horrible. We need to send clear messages to our local and federal governments to take action before it’s too late.” Dr Ron Cotterel

Dr Ron Cotterel, family practice physician, CA

Through year after year of drought and unprecedented heat, California has become a tinderbox, and so when fire season comes, the fires hit all through California and all up and down the West Coast. It’s horrible. In our local area around Sacramento and Davis during the summertime and into the fall, even though we have so far been lucky enough to have not had major fires, the smoke sets in, and people have to struggle to survive the smoke on the poor air quality days, filtering the air in their houses or wearing respiratory masks whenever they go outside.

In my Family Medicine practice, so far, in addition to patients with heat exhaustion, many come in with respiratory symptoms from the wildfire smoke. Of course, I do what I can to help them reverse their symptoms with medications and lifestyle suggestions. But this is just treating the symptoms, not the real cause, which is global climate change. What is really needed is to educate our communities about climate change, how it’s impacting us now, and how it’s just going to continue to worsen unless we somehow get a handle on it. We need to send clear messages to our local and federal governments to take action before it’s too late.