The fires aren't just burning forests and chaparall but also carcinogenic substances like Aluminum and carpeting and plastics in homes and vehicles

My wife mentioned that she was in pain a lot lately and I mentioned I was dealing with much more pain than normal in my hands and muscles and joints. It should be less pain because the weather is warmer now too. I said to her: "All this smoke we had to breathe the last two months now wasn't just trees and chaparral burning but also aluminum and carpeting and plastic in homes and cars as thousands and thousands of cars and homes burned in the western states and then we all had to breathe all this."

The point being that our bodies are likely trying to find a way to deal with the carcinogenic substances that we were forced to breathe in whenever we were outside.

By the way my son lived in Seoul, South Korea for 5 years and taught us about Winix air purifiers that are also a very useful south Korean product. But they are relatively reasonable in price and we just bought another one for one of our daughters living in Portland. So, my son has his from South Korea in Portland, my daughter has one in Portland, My other daughter has one we bought for the Santa Barbara House last Fall I believe and we have one here on the northern California coast that we run year around at at the very least the lowest fan level or more depending upon what's going on outside (fires, pollen, dust from winds, whatever). So, depending upon what is going on we adjust it to our needs. 

However, since we have this Winix air purifier and change the black filter at least every two months and clean the outer permanent filter periodically and change the white big filter inside once every 6 months or so it just keeps right on working filtering the air 24 hours a day.

My daughter in Portland couldn't believe what a difference it made with filtering out smoke out of the air in the first 24 hours either.

My son was talking about a co-worker who had to work outside during the smoke and she could barely talk after a few days of breathing all the smoke in Portland, Oregon before the rains all started recently and put out most of the fires near Portland, Salem and Eugene, Oregon.

Unfortunately, California is still burning with no let up in sight at many many locations with no rain in the offing so far.

But, luckily at least where we live the winds have blown the smoke inland and away from us regarding all the fires for almost a week now.