A published in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science and Technology Letters is raising concerns about the pervasive presence of “forever chemicals” – also known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) – in something many triathletes have on their bodies 24/7: watch bands.

These synthetic chemicals, notorious for their persistence in the environment and human body, are now being found in common consumer products, with fitness tracker and smartwatch wristbands being the latest addition.

“These PFAS are pretty nasty chemicals as a class,” says Graham Peaslee, professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and corresponding author on the study. “All of them that we found are toxic, a couple of them are bioaccumulative, and all of them are persistent.”

This group of chemicals, which comprise more than 14,000 individual compounds, is particularly resistant to heat, water, and oil, so they’ve been used in products like stain-resistant fabrics, food packaging, cosmetics, firefighting foams, and non-stick cookware. But it’s been well-established that PFAS are linked to serious health issues including multiple types of cancer, suppression of the immune system, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, and liver and kidney damage.

Forever Chemicals in Watch Bands Study Overview

For the study, researchers analyzed 22 watch bands, from a mix of brands and price points, for the presence of PFAS. The bands, which included brands like Apple and Fitbit, were all purchased from Amazon or Best Buy, or were donated. Of the bands, 15 of them had the presence of these “forever chemicals,” and all were in very high concentrations. The researchers found one particular compound, PFHxA, in abundance – many times higher than what has been found in recent studies of cosmetics, food packaging, and school uniforms.

PFHxA being found in such extremely high concentrations is bad news for people who wear these watch bands for 12-plus hours per day. It gives the chemical significant opportunity to transfer through the skin. In addition, with athletes wearing these bands during exercise means additional sweat contact and open skin pores. And showed that PFHxA can be dermally absorbed, especially in the presence of sweat.

“If you wear these daily, over long periods each day,” Peaslee says, “then you undoubtedly are getting some exposure.”

Should You Replace Your Watch Band?

Before you burn your watch band, rest assured that PFAS are already in your bloodstream – they are in the blood of 100% of people in North America, says Peaslee, “thanks to our pervasive use of it from the 1950s onward.” Whether or not you use consumer products with PFAS directly, once they’re discarded into landfills, they break down and make it into our drinking water, our irrigation water, and then into us.

“I’m not too worried about the exposure, in terms of, we’re exposed day and night to everything else,” Peaslee says. “This is one more, but the next time you buy one, you really want to read carefully.”

While the study’s authors didn’t disclose specifically how each brand tested, they did provide information to help you determine whether your current watch band likely has PFAS.

First, seek out the materials in your own multisport or GPS watch band, if they’re listed (sellers are not required to publish materials, but some do). If any publish that they’re made with fluoroelastomers, fluorine, or the abbreviations FKM, FEK, FEKK, and FEKM, steer clear – they very likely have PFAS. For Garmin wearers, the company has been working to (PFOA and PFOS) from their products, including watch bands, though that doesn’t mean all Garmin watch bands are currently 100% PFAS free.

If your watch is made of other materials, such as silicone, nylon, or leather, “those are presumably not PFAS treated,” Peaslee says – you should be safe to continue wearing and using them without risking exposure.

What to Look For in a New (PFAS-Free) Smartwatch Band

If you’re not sure what your watch is made of or you’re not confident it’s free of PFAS, Peaslee recommends being proactive. “It’s well worth trying to replace them as soon as you can,” he says.

And especially since it won’t be an expensive swap: The researchers found a correlation between the presence of PFAS and the price of the watch band. It was only the medium-priced ($15-$30) and expensive watch bands ($30+) that contained the chemicals – the bands less than $15 were unlikely to contain a fluoroelastomer, which the researchers presumed was due to the increased cost to manufacture using PFAS. You can also search for bands made from the materials silicone and nylon.

And hopefully, in not too long, we’ll see more and more “PFAS free” or “fluorine free” labels on watch bands. Europe actually proposed a ban on PFHxA, Peaslee says, and “I think there’ll be more transparency in the future.”

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Barely two weeks into his second presidential term, Donald Trump has already dramatically changed the policies governing public lands, outdoor recreation, and the environment.

On Monday, January 20, Trump renamed the country’s highest peak, 20,310-foot Denali, to Mount McKinley, replacing the indigenous title with that of the 25th president of the United States. The same day, Trump the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the 2016 international treaty to battle climate change. He on oil and gas leasing within the state’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He requiring the National Marine Fisheries, Bureau of Reclamation, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to begin pumping water from California’s San Joaquin Delta across the state—a move that could jeopardize endangered fish. And Trump announced a , which has a within the National Park Service.

These moves echo ones that Trump made during his first presidential term: like the controversial downsizing of Utah’s Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by almost a million acres apiece and the different climate, water, and wildlife protections.

But critics may forget that, during his first term, Trump also signed into law a pair of very significant conservation bills. In 2019, the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act created 1.3 million acres of Wilderness and ten new Wild and Scenic River segments. It also increased the size of three national parks. Then in 2020, Trump encouraged the passage of the , which funneled $9.5 billion towards the infamous National Park Service (NPS) maintenance backlog. It permanently allocated $900 million annually to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the nation’s single largest source of outdoor recreation infrastructure funding.

What will the second Trump administration mean for public lands, the environment, and outdoor recreation? Nobody knows for sure. But we’ve taken a look at the decisions Trump has already made, what he’s said he’ll do, and a wish-list created by personnel from the previous administration, to make an educated analysis.

Hiring Personnel Who Appreciate Outdoor Rec and Industry

One of the former president’s first personnel nominees for his upcoming administration was North Dakota governor Doug Burgum to lead the Department of the Interior. The agency controls some 500 million acres of public land and oversees the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Critics have labeled Burgum a champion of the oil and gas industry, having led the state with the third-largest oil production and publicly criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to . At the same time, Burgum is himself an avid horseman, hunter, skier, and hiker and has been a booster of outdoor recreation in North Dakota, creating the state’s Office of Outdoor Recreation and allocating $1.2 million in grants for trail building.

Trump is also expected to name Burgum the administration’s energy czar, following through on his campaign promises to increase oil and gas production as a way to curb energy costs. Burgum’s nomination drew praise from the energy and mining sector. “He recognizes that affordable and reliable energy along with American mineral production are critical to growing our nation’s economy,” Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association told .

Conservatives argue that increased mining and domestic fossil fuel production could spur economic activity, but conservationists are bracing for the environmental blow. “Public lands are beloved and vitally important to people in this country. The first Trump administration treated these places like they’re meant to be dug up, drilled, or sold off for profit,” David Seabrook, interim president of the Wilderness Society, said in a press release.

Despite Burgum’s alignment with the oil and gas industry, other sources within the outdoor recreation community told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that the North Dakota governor represents a best-case-scenario nominee from the Republican administration. “Governor Burgum has shown a commitment to supporting outdoor recreation as an economic driver and a meaningful way to connect communities,” said Jessica Turner, president of outdoor recreation trade association Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, in a press release. “As an avid outdoorsman, we are hopeful that the governor’s long-time admiration of Teddy Roosevelt and deep understanding of business will help support and grow the recreation economy.”

According to Cody Schulz, director of North Dakota Parks and Recreation, which oversees the state’s new office of outdoor recreation, Governor Burgum is “an incredibly curious and collaborative leader who encourages his personnel to make decisions based on data.”

Schulz says that Burgum’s efforts to improve outdoor recreation in North Dakota stem from his own passion for the outdoors, and from an understanding that the industry can be an important economic driver. “Conservation and outdoor recreation infrastructure draws both visitors and new residents to North Dakota,” he says.

Burgum’s data-driven approach offers a ray of hope for fans of the Bureau of Land Management’s new Public Lands Rule, which considers recreation on equal footing with extractive industries like grazing and oil and gas when making land use decisions.

Moving the BLM Back to Colorado

In 2019, the Trump administration relocated the agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado. The relocation was touted as a practical move to get managers closer to the lands they managed and seen as a way to attract workers who may not have been able to afford D.C. ‘s notoriously expensive cost of living.

Eventually, the BLM’s headquarters was returned to D.C. by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in 2021. According to a 2021 Government Accountability Office report, collapsing the D.C. office drove out the agency’s most experienced employees and the number of vacancies. Out of 176 staff told to relocate, only 41 accepted their reassignments and the rest left their positions.

Tracy Stone-Manning, who was appointed by Biden in 2021 to lead the BLM, called the move “wildly disruptive,” in a . “It’s years of opportunity cost when we could and should be focused on the work of the bureau, for public lands and the American people, and we had to instead focus on rebuilding the bureau,” Stone-Manning said.

Lawmakers in Colorado, , have said that they support moving the BLM headquarters back to Grand Junction.

Taking Aim at Environmental Policy

The downsizing of Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments was one of the former president’s most high-profile decisions on public land. While the cuts were reversed by the Biden administration, it’s possible that Trump will again shrink the monuments. Utah Republican Representative John Curtis told The Salt Lake Tribune he .

The first Trump administration championed mineral extraction and land development as a way to pump revenue into local economies and return power over protected lands to states. The administration also weakened several bedrock environmental laws. Probably most significant were alterations to protections afforded by the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).

In 2017, Trump’s EPA , which afforded protections to seasonal wetlands and streams, particularly prevalent in the arid, but recreation-rich western United States. Then in 2019, the administration changed the Endangered Species Act,Ìęremoving protections for threatened species and making it more difficult to add additional species to the list. Agencies would also be allowed to conduct economic assessments when deciding whether a species warrants protection.

More subtle, but arguably more problematic, was the weakening of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), the law that requires an environmental review and public comment period for every major project. It’s used on everything from major timber sales to ski resort development.

Jon Jarvis, director of the Park Service under President Barack Obama, said NEPA helped guide multiple policies during his time with the NPS, from the relocation of wolves to Yellowstone, to the altering traffic flow in Yosemite. “Sunlight is a great disinfectant, and many of these agency plans would now be done in the dark,” Jarvis told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű.

Trump’s Interior Department made several other controversial moves during his first administration that directly impacted outdoor recreation. In 2017, the department made a unilateral decision to increase admission prices during peak seasons at the nation’s most popular national parks from $30 to $70. There was so much furor about the decision that the administration canceled those plans five months later.

Then in 2020, the department issued an order that allowed for e-bike use on any federal trail where regular bikes were allowed. Cycling advocates and at least one advocacy group applauded the decision that would allow better access for cyclists who rely on e-bikes. “The Secretarial Order will help get public lands visitors out of their cars and beyond congested visitor centers and parking lots,” wrote the cycling advocacy group People For Bikes at the time. More than 50 other recreation groups, however, formally objected to the policy, saying that the decision had been made without any study on its impact on wildlife and visitor safety.

This year, the Park Service ruled that it would make decisions on up to individual park units on a “case-by-case basis.”

Creating Fewer National Monuments

Some Western conservatives would like to see the administration spearhead an effort to repeal or weaken the 1906 Antiquities Act, which allows a president to create new national monuments. The law has been used in some 300 instances by presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to George W. Bush to protect millions of acres of federal land. Some of the nation’s most popular national parks began as monuments, including the Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, and Grand Teton.

Only Congress can repeal a law in the United States, so abolishing the Antiquities Act would require a majority of both houses to want it gone. Given pro-monument public sentiment, that seems like a long shot.

More likely is a severe weakening of the law through the Supreme Court. Published in April 2022 by the conservative think tank The Heritage Project, the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, known colloquially as “Project 2025,” outlines the steps such an effort might take. The document calls for a “downward adjustment” of the nation’s national monuments, and then directs the republican President to “vigorously defend the downward adjustments it makes to permit a ruling on a President’s authority to reduce the size of national monuments by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from the document. But authors of Project 2025 have noted that other prominent conservatives support weakening the Antiquities Act. In 2021 Chief Justice Roberts signaled that he is looking for a case whose verdict could be used to curtail the ability of presidents to create large monuments.

It may also mean the loss of a Biden-era protections like a 10-mile oil exploration moratorium placed around New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon National Historical Park to help protect Native American antiquities, and one on 221,898 acres of Forest Service and BLM land on Colorado’s Thompson Divide, just northwest of Crested Butte. The latter was the result of years of work by an unlikely coalition of ranchers, hunters, anglers, mountain bikers, off-road vehicle users, and environmentalists to protect the habitat of elk, bear, deer, moose, mountain lion, and a pair of endangered species: Colorado River cutthroat trout and Canadian lynx. The Project 2025 document specifically targets both protections.

Also on the chopping block may be Biden’s public land order to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area for 20 years. The decades-long fight over proposed copper and nickel mines adjacent to the wilderness area was seemingly settled in 2023 with the order. At issue were concerns that mine waste would flow directly down the Kawishiwi River into the waterways of the nation’s most-visited Wilderness Area (some 165,000 visitors annually.) Project 2025 calls for that order to be reversed despite recent polling that shows 69 percent of Minnesota for the Boundary Waters.

All of these potential rollbacks fly in the face of what many Americans want, says Jenny Rowland-Shea, director of public lands for The Center for American Progress, a progressive research and advocacy group. She cites a , which found that 78 percent of Western voters want more emphasis on conserving wildlife migration routes, providing highway crossings, and limiting more development to protect wildlife habitats. According to the study, just 20 percent of voters want more emphasis on economically productive uses of land such as new development, roads, ranching, or oil and gas production.

“The United States is actually producing record amounts of oil right now,” she says.

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On Monday, January 20, the presidency of Joe Biden came to an end. During his four years in office, Biden, 82, focused on issues that impact outdoor recreation, such as the preservation of public lands and conservation.

The centerpiece of Biden’s conservation policy was the , a commitment to conserve and restore at least 30 percent of federal public lands and waters in the U.S. by 2030. There are still five years left to go, but during his tenure Biden did protect more lands and waters than any president before him. Biden’s track record on public lands was far from unblemished, though. He also opened public lands for the extraction of natural resources, approved a massive oil extraction project, and oversaw a boom in domestic oil production.

We examined some of Biden’s actions that impacted public lands and the environment to try and determine how he compares to previous presidents. Here’s what we found.

Establishing and Expanding National Monuments and Other Protected Designations

Biden used his power granted by the Antiquities Act to create or expand , which is actually fewer than some of his democratic predecessors. Barack Obama 34 monuments; Bill Clinton did 22. Republican presidents historically have not established as many—Donald Trump and George W. Bush created one and six, respectively. During his first term, Trump became the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to shrink a national monument, drastically reducing the size of Bears Ears. Biden restored the monument to its original size in 2021.

Designating national monuments isn’t the only method for presidents to protect public land. Biden also created six new national wildlife refuges, three national marine sanctuaries, and one national estuarine research reserve. He closed roughly 625 million acres of ocean to offshore drilling off of the Atlantic coast, part of the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific coast off of California, Washington, and Oregon, parts of Alaska’s Bering Sea, and the Arctic. Biden also prevented roads from being built through the Tongass National Forest, a huge swath of undeveloped land in Alaska.

In total, Biden protected 674 million acres of lands and waters, the most of any president in U.S. history. But the drawing and redrawing of the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument from one presidential administration to the next illustrates the sometimes tenuous nature of land conserved by executive action. Namely, that it is vulnerable to being overturned by subsequent administrations.

Opened Public Land to Drilling and Approving Oil Projects

During his 2020 campaign, Biden swore not to open any new public lands for drilling. And at first, he was true to his word, issuing an executive order that paused all new oil and gas leases. But in 2021,Ìęa federal judge struck down his ban on drilling, and public outcry ratcheted up amid rising gas prices. In 2022, Biden on his campaign promise and opened Bureau of Land Management land in Colorado, Nevada, North Dakota, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, and Utah to drilling.

Afterward, Biden’s administration approved additional oil and gas permits at a rate comparable to Trump during his first term. Biden also approved the massive, long-disputed Willow Project in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, which will involve drilling up to 199 new oil and gas wells over 30 years.

Many of the leases approved by Biden were sold by former presidents—ConocoPhillips bought the Willow project lease . Industry experts Biden with investing in alternative energy sources that will lower demand for oil and gas in the long run, and the Inflation Reduction Act raised the cost of drilling on public lands going forward. But there’s no getting around the fact that U.S. domestic crude oil production grew to , ever, during his time in office.

“Every day that you are allowing [the industry] to remain in the room, that you are indulging their fantasies about continued production, that you are allowing them to kind of peddle their false solutions and prolong their existence, you’re shooting yourself in the foot,” Collin Rees, U.S. program manager for Oil Change International, in 2024.

Partnering with Indigenous Communities

Biden made history in 2021, when he appointed Deb HaalandÌęSecretary of the Interior. Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, is the first Indigenous person ever to lead the department that houses the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Biden administration included Indigenous communities in planning and decision making around public lands, reaching 400 co-management and co-stewardship agreements with tribal nations.

Biden broke new ground as a president when he became the first to apologize to Indigenous Americans for the federal Indian Boarding Schools, a program designed to eradicate Indigenous cultures through the forced assimilation of their children. One of the new monuments established by the former president was the Carlisle Indian Boarding school, which commemorates that period of history.

The EXPLORE Act

President Biden signed the EXPLORE Act into law in January 2025, after it passed Congress with bipartisan support. The legislation contains more than a dozen outdoor recreation-related initiatives rolled up into one piece of legislation, including protecting the use of fixed climbing bolts in wilderness areasÌęand streamlining the permitting process for guiding companies working on public land.

The Act doesn’t appropriate new funding, but it does provide directives to the various land management agencies to take on certain projects, like improving campsite infrastructure, building more restrooms on public land, and installing broadband in the national parks. Many of the EXPLORE Act’s provisions focus on increasing access to federal public land, extending an Obama-era initiative offering free national park passes for all fourth graders, making more infrastructure for people with disabilities, and expanding programs to get veterans outside.

Enshrining these priorities into law increases the odds that they’re enacted under following administrations, but agencies like the National Park Service, Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management have struggled for years to meet existing mandates with insufficient budgets. The National Parks Service, for example, in 2023 that they have an estimated $23.3 billion backlog in necessary upkeep of existing infrastructure.

Policies to Fight Climate Change

Biden was lauded by environmental advocates for securing the in climate adaptation and resiliency projects with the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021.

He also rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, an international commitment to reduce emissions that Obama signed in 2016 and Trump withdrew from when he took office in 2017. Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement again on January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term.

The Biden administration formed a program called Climate Corps in 2023. The corps was highly publicized by the outgoing administration as rebooting a popular New Deal-era jobs program, the Civilian Conservation Corps. But critics argued that the program was little more than a new label placed on existing federally-supported climate and conservation service jobs. The Climate Corps,Ìęwhich the administration initially said would create 300,000 new jobs, didn’t secure any funding from Congress. When it finally , it amounted to little more than a website listing states’ existing climate and conservation positions that were already paid for through programs like Americorps.

Congressional Republicans vehemently opposed the Corps (Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell “pure socialist wish-fullment” and “make-work programs for young liberal activists.”) With Biden out of office, the “Climate Corps” heading has and the is inactive. But many of the actual jobs that had preexisted the Corps, and were briefly pulled under its umbrella, will remain.

There were some service-oriented jobs programs that created new opportunities for young people to work and gain skills in conservation and environmental stewardship during the Biden administration, mostly operating at the state level. The Maryland Climate Corps, for example, launched in 2023, and a dozen other states established or expanded corps of their own.

What Will Biden’s Public Lands Legacy Be?Ìę

The full extent of Biden’s impact on the outdoors may take years to fully understand. Some of his policies are likely to be undone by the Trump administration, which has to shrink national monuments and environmental regulations. His failure to follow through on campaign promises, like the Climate Corps and a ban on new drilling leases, may feel like missed opportunities.

However, the Biden administration did set a new standard for empowering tribal nations to be partners in managing the federal lands that are their ancestral homelands. And the priorities for land management agencies passed in the EXPLORE Act, which address pressing issues for outdoor recreation, are codified into law and more likely to endure from one administration to the next.

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Chick fil-A used to be my guilty pleasure, especially when traveling. When I’m rushing through airports that seductive red and white sign always calls for a detour and a Chicken Deluxe. Now, thanks to about the plastic chemicals found in food packaging, that sandwich is dead to me. A team of scientists and concerned citizens recently tested more than 300 unique foods for harmful plastic chemicals. My beloved treat sat near the top of the inauspicious leaderboard.

My regular readers know that I have long been concerned with the scary amount of plastic chemicals that we interact with as we Ìęgo about our daily lives.

There’s the black plastic in our utensils. And the PFAS (a.k.a forever chemicals) found in everything from our clothing and furniture to our beauty products and toilet paper, the foaming agents in our toothpaste and laundry soaps.

The list goes on and on. We are a society addicted to plastic chemicals and all the modern conveniences they afford. Meanwhile, cancer rates in people under 50 are . I am in doubting that this is merely coincidence.

But nothing freaks me out more than chemicals making their way into my family’s food. Who among us could ever enjoy a bite of a Chicken DeluxeÌęagain if we knew it were laced with poison?

I decided to look into what we know about chemicals in food packaging, what regulators are doing about it, and how we can protect ourselves.

Plastic Chemicals Pervade Our Everyday Food

I’ve been seeing pop up in my newsfeeds about plastic chemicals in food. I’ve had moments of paralysis in the grocery story trying to find a decent head of lettuce that wasn’t swathed in a plastic.

A group of Californians felt the same way. TheyÌęembarked on a six-month research project to test common food items—from local grocery stores and take-out joints—for the presence of chemicals that enhance the performance of plastics. Phthalates, for instance, are a class of chemicals used to make plastic more pliable. Think: milk jugs and yogurt cups. Bisphenols are plastic hardeners found in beverage bottles and linings of canned goods.

The independent group, working under the name PlasticList, purchased 775 food samples of 312 items. Everything from Almond Breeze milk (currently sitting in my fridge) and grass-fed steak from Whole Foods to Taco Bell chicken burritos and, yes, my beloved Chicken Deluxe from Chick fil-A. They then tested those items for the presence of 18 common plastic-related chemicals that fall under the umbrella of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (or EDCs). Ample proof exists that EDCs cause like cancer, diabetes, and reproductive and neurological disorders.

The is pretty shocking: the PlasticList team detected plastic chemicals in 86 percent of the food tested. “But this doesn’t mean we should all freak out,” says Yaroslav Shipilov, the PlasticList team leader. “Although it was surprising to discover the presence of plastic chemicals in such a huge percentage of the food we tested, in all but 24 specific cases, the items are still safe to eat according to the three major regulating bodies, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).”

Shipilov hopes that his findings will spawn more testing. He also hopes that the regulating bodies will update their outdated safety limits, which are decades old and often contradictory. “For example, in some cases we have chemicals that have been banned from children’s toys, but not food. This suggests that they are not safe for toddlers to touch, but are fine for them to ingest,” he says.

Are Plastic Chemicals Harmful to People?

Make no mistake about it. A rapidly growing body of evidence proves that plastic chemicals are really bad for human health, not to mention the harm they cause the environment.

To get an overview of the health impacts, I reached out to Philip J. Landrigan MD, a pediatrician and biology professor at Boston College. Landrigan serves as director of both the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good and the Global Observatory on Planetary Health.

In October 2023, Landrigan published , a wide-ranging report covering the many health and environmental implications of plastic chemicals.

“Plastics have allowed significant benefits to humanity in the fields of medicine, electronics, aerospace, and more. But it’s also clear that they are also responsible for significant harms to human health, the economy, and the earth’s environment,” says Landrigan. “Thousands of chemicals—including carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, neurotoxicants, and persistent organic pollutants—leach out of plastics and harm human health at every stage of the lifecycle, from production to discard.”

For example, Landrigan says, consider the coal miners and oil field workers who suffer from cardiovascular disease and lung cancer. (These workers extract the raw materials that create plastic.)ÌęThe plastic production workers who have an increased risk of leukemia, lymphoma, and brain and breast cancer. The plastic recycling workers who contend with high rates of toxic metal poisoning and neuropathy. The workers in the plastics textile industry die of bladder cancer and lung disease. And the families who live near plastic production facilities who have increased risks of premature birth, low birth weight, asthma, childhood leukemia, lung cancer, and a host of other life-threatening ailments.

The report says that these harms exceed $500 billion per year in health-related costs in the U.S. alone.

“What’s most concerning to me as a pediatrician,” says Landrigan, “is the risk that chemicals in our food pose to pregnant women and young children. We all need to be more aware of plastics’ threats to human health. And we need to take intentional steps to reduce our exposure and our children’s exposure to plastic.”

Food Packaging Regulations Are Rolling Out–But Not Fast Enough

The federal government has been slow to respond in a meaningful way to the growing body of evidence that plastics in our food system are poisoning us.

Just last week, a group of environmentalists filed a new lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the use of phthalates in plastic food packaging. For close to a decade, the FDA has ignored calls to take stronger action against phthalates. We lag far behind the European Union in this regard.

Reporting from suggests that this refusal is due to pressure from the chemicals industry, which would surely suffer in the face of a phthalates ban.

Still, some states have begun to take independent action to protect our food from plastics chemicals.

“States have taken the lead on phasing out dangerous chemicals from food packaging and containers,” says Gretchen Salter, policy director for Safer States, a national alliance that works to protect people and the environment from toxic chemicals. “Our shows that 16 states have adopted 29 policies to remove chemicals like PFAS, phthalates, and bisphenols (chemicals like BPA and BPF)Ìęfrom food packaging. Additionally, Washington state has recently Ìęto ban allÌębisphenols in drink can liners and require disclosure of the use of allÌębisphenols in food can liners.”

5 Ways To Protect Yourself From Plastic Chemicals in Food

Try as we might, avoiding plastic food packaging altogether is downright impossible. But there are some things we can do to not only limit our exposure to their inherent chemicals (like phthalates, bisphenols, and PFAS), but to be part of long-term solutions that will protect our kids, grandkids, and all the generations to come.

1. 1. Avoid fast food and take-out. When you can’t, get that hot food out of its packaging as soon as possible to avoid chemical leaching. Even pizza boxes contain PFAS.
   2. Bring your own take-out containers. When dining out, bring a glass or metal container from home for leftovers. And avoid putting plastic take-out containers into the microwave. Although the specific research around this practice is , most experts believe this can cause additional contamination and leaching.
   3. Opt for fresh, whole foods. Skip the packaging whenever you can. For example, buy loose veggies rather than those ensconced in plastic. For meat and fish, buy direct from the counter. Ask for it wrapped in paper, rather than picking up a package from the chiller, where it’s been resting in a plastic package for who-knows-how-long. (Note: even that butcher’s paper likely has chemicals on it, so unwrap it as soon as you get home.)
   4. Ditch all plastic from your kitchen. Yep, you heard me—all of it. Storage containers, colanders, utensils, cereal bowls. Start to replace all of those items with glass, wood, metal, and ceramic. I’ve scored some really high quality replacements at the second-hand stores I love to frequent. And don’t forget the Saran Wrap and Zip-Lock bags. Transition away from those, too, and go with beeswax bowl toppers and silicone baggies.
   5. Speak up! It takes one minute to to create a Global Plastics Treaty. Do it! Another powerful action you can take is to write a letter to your state congress representatives. Urge them to support the Global Plastics Treaty as well as state laws to ban toxic plastic chemicals. Here are to get you started.

Kristin Hostetter is °żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ’s sustainability columnist. Sadly, she has eaten her last Chick fil-A Chicken Deluxe. But she’s currently working on recreating a healthier version in her home kitchen.Ìę Follow her journey to live more sustainably by for her twice-monthly newsletter.Ìę

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On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, the azure sky and gleaming sun that are hallmarks of Los Angeles, California, were rapidly replaced by thick grey smoke swelling upwards from fast-moving fire within Pacific Palisades. Hours later, another blaze, called the Eaton Fire, began to consume huge swaths of Pasadena and Altadena.

Since then, the skies of Southern California have been crisscrossed by a dizzying number of firefighting aircraft: helicopters, propeller-driven water bombers, and even massive tanker jets. You may have seen and on social media, dropping orange slurry near homes or spraying buckets of ocean water on rising flames.

Aerial firefighters—the pilots, flight coordinators, and crew—have played a vital role in the battle against the worst fire season in Southern California history. As of publishing, —with a handful of smaller fires, like the Kenneth Fire and Hurst Fire breaking out as well. In total, these blazes have consumed 40,000 acres of land and 12,300 structures. The death toll of the fires, overall, has risen to 24.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű spoke to aerial firefighters to understand how they have contributed to the lifesaving efforts across Southern California, and to understand why the blazes present such a challenge for crews both on the ground and in the skies.

“The Palisades and Eaton fires are in the top three worst fires I’ve worked in my 30-year career,” says fire captain and helicopter coordinator John Williamson with Cal Fire, the fire department of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Importance of Aerial Firefighters

Aerial firefighters have the same job as ground-based firefighters, but aerial firefighters corral the flames from the sky. They work in tandem with ground crews to support their efforts by dropping thousands of gallons of fire retardant and water to critical fire areas with each fly by.

It’s a dangerous job. , there have been 14 fatal aerial firefighting aircraft crashes resulting in the deaths of 25 aerial firefighting crew members in the U.S. In contrast, not a single U.S. commercial passenger airline pilot has been killed in a flight crash since 2020.

There are more than 50 aerial firefighting aircraft assigned to the Los Angeles fires that come from several agencies. Some aircraft are from , the largest civil aerial firefighting fleet in the world with 60 rotary and fixed-wing aircraft. Others are from private companies like Montana-based . And others still have flown in from other fire departments across North America, including a crew fromÌęQuebec, Canada.

Aerial firefighting fleets vary in size. Cal Fire retains the likes of multiple 1,200-gallon-capable , 4,000-gallon-capable , , , and . Neptune Aviation owns nine , each of which can hold 3,000 gallons of fire retardant and four of which are currently assisting with the Los Angeles fires.

No matter the aircraft, Williamson, who’s currently in Los Angeles working the Palisades and Eaton fires, notes that aerial firefighters’ jobs are entirely to support the first responders on the ground.

In previous years, wintertime has been a quiet season for aerial firefighters, with most on vacation and many of the fleets put away for maintenance. But this is changing, due in part to a shift in climate and drier conditions yearround. Now, agencies like Cal Fire must be ready to battle wildfire at any moment.

“There is no longer a ‘fire season,’” says a spokesperson from Cal Fire. “It is now a ‘fire year.’”

The Santa Ana Winds

The nearly 100-mile-per-hour winds made the first evening of firefighting a biblical “man vs. wild” battle. The fires initially had to be fought almost entirely by groundcrews as the hurricane-force gusts made aerial firefighting unsafe and ineffective. These winds, known as the , are seasonal, strong winds that blow south into the Los Angeles area from the Mojave Desert. The Santa Ana Winds are known for fanning wildfire flames and causing a , which can make flying dangerous or impossible.

“These fires are significant because of the wind event that preceded them,” says Williamson. “The high winds spread the fires quickly and made it difficult for any aerial firefighting to occur in the initial hours
I hate to describe it this way, but everything leading up to these fires created the perfect storm.”

As the wind speeds decreased slightly on January 8, aerial firefighters took to the sky and began dropping thousands of gallons of fire retardant and water across the Palisades and Eaton fires.

But the wind has continued to create headaches. Williamson says that crews must assess wind gusts each day to make sure that it’s safe to fly—and to ensure that their drops of slurry or water are accurate.

“Additionally, the infrastructure here in Los Angeles presents a challenge with so many above-ground electrical wires and tall structures,” Williamson says. “Not every aerial firefighter assigned to these fires is from Los Angeles, so some are learning the terrain as they go.”

Aerial Firefighting Logistics

At the beginning of each day, aerial firefighters receive a morning briefing at their assigned air base before linking up with officials who coordinate helicopter flights or air attack routes. These specialists are like aerial firefighting air traffic control: they tell aerial firefighters where to fly and at what elevation in the firefighting airspace to best support ground crews.

The size and intensity of the Los Angeles fires means that the “stack,” or elevation layers of an airspace, in which the aerial firefighters fly is crowded and limited.

“The wind and the amount of aerial firefighters we have working on these fires has made the stacks complicated,” Williamson says. “We currently have a thousand feetÌęof elevation between each aircraft in a stack to give our crews some buffer, and we’ve been having to closely monitor where and how each aircraft in a stack goes about their jobs due to the high winds and terrain of these fires.”

For reference, are allowed to have 1,000 feet of stack between them when flying below 29,000 feet, and must have 2,000 feet of stack between them when above 29,000 feet.

Neptune Aviation’s Chief Pilot Eric Komberec says the Palisades and Eaton fires have been some of the most challenging to fight from the air.

“The urban interface and airspace concerns with so many other commercial airports in the [Los Angeles] area combined with the low moisture index and intense winds has made this a complicated fire for our aerial firefighters to tackle,” Komberec says. “There also aren’t any firebreaks due to the urban environment, so we have few ways to corral these fires. We have to attack them totally differently than we would a true wildland fire.”

Komberec notes that crews are accountable for their drops of fire retardant—which are determined by the pilot only through mental math and “eyeballing it.”

The crosswinds, he says, have made it difficult to maneuver planes and ensure an accurate drop of retardant. “We are held accountable for every drop of retardant we make,” Komberec says. “It’s not only extremely expensive, but can be dangerous when dropped on or near congested areas. Given the urban interface of this fire, we have to be extremely concerned with making sure we’re at the appropriate height and angle for a drop.”

The Mental Toll

A week of round-the-clock work has taken its toll on the aerial firefighting crews in Los Angeles.

Williamson says pilots have very little downtimeÌęin between shifts, with almost every waking moment devoted to gearing up for the next one. “After a shift you’ll eat and rest and let your mind unravel a bit from what you just went through,” he says. “But even when you’re not on a shift, you’re strategizing with other crew members, trying to make your plan for the next shift to hopefully be even more effective than during the last one.”

Crews must also manage the psychological impact of viewing the destroyed neighborhoods and city centers from the air.

“We see the devastation from a different perspective,” Williamson says. “The images of destruction are seared into your brain. It’s hard to see how far the burn scar extends knowing the loss of property and life that came with it. You can’t dwell on these things while working, though. You have to keep grinding until the job is done.”

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Editor’s Note: We first published this story in January 2019 in the wake of the Camp Fire, the deadliest in California history. With the Palisades, Sunset, and Eaton Fires now raging across the Los Angeles area—and discussion about the role that U.S. forest policy might have played in creating the conditions for them following in their wake—we feel it’s as relevant as ever.

Fire ecologist Chad Hanson is standing knee-deep in downed trees and charred stumps when he spots what he’s been searching for: a pine sapling. He’s spent this sunny September day touring the burn scar left from the 2011 Las Conchas Fire, when a conflagration roared through northern New Mexico, torching 43,000 acres in a single night.

After that apocalypse, who would expect a pine forest to come back? Hanson does, and all day, he’s braved the thorny limbs of locusts and meandered among aspens just tinged with yellow to find it.

Hanson, who holds a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California and co-authored the book , has built his career around fighting the notion that intense wildfires are wholly devastating. He argues they play a vital ecological role that starts with beetles and woodpeckers and spreads throughout the food web, and that when forest managers try to substitute fires with logging, they do real and lasting harm to the environment.

In the wake of 2018’s devastating wildfires, the upper echelons of the Trump administration have called for increased timber harvesting as a remedy. In public statements, the president blamed California’s deadly fire season, in which nearly 100 people lost their lives, on rivers being “diverted” to the Pacific Ocean and poor forest management.

In rebuttal, the California Department of Forest and Fire Protection’s Scott McClean told the Los Angeles Times there’s no shortage of water, adding, “The problem is changing climate leading to more severe and destructive fires.”

Like the president, former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blamed environmental activists for wildfires’ increased intensity.

“Every year we watch our forests burn, and every year there is a call for action,” last August. “Yet, when action comes, and we try to thin forests of dead and dying timber, or we try to sustainably harvest timber from dense and fire-prone areas, we are attacked with frivolous litigation from radical environmentalists who would rather see forests and communities burn than see a logger in the woods.”

But Hanson and other fire ecologists caution that the administration has it backwards: More logging can actually make wildfires burn hotter and faster. Instead, they say, it’s well-placed, smart management that will reduce the impacts to communities from wildfires—and unchecked logging is neither.

To understand scientists’ objections, there are a few important facts you need to know about last fall’s blazes in California.

“Most of what burned wasn’t forest,” says Matthew Hurteau, a professor at the University of New Mexico who studies forests, fires and climate adaptation. Instead, the fires burned mostly grass and shrubby chaparral. That’s been the case in several of the state’s most damaging fires: the Woolsey and Camp in 2018, Thomas and Tubbs in 2017, and even back to the Cedar Fire in 2003.

Creating varying tree densities and providing anchor points for wildland firefighters could reduce wildfire risks, as could prescribed burns, Hurteau says. But, he adds, “logging operations can actually increase the rate of speed at which fire moves across an area, depending on how the logging operation is conducted.”

Opening the canopy dries out the forest floor and increases wind speeds, both of which accelerate fire. Logging can also leave behind more combustible species like cheatgrass, an opportunistic invasive that thrives in disturbed areas and is near-impossible to eradicate. There’s also the simple fact that much of the densest forest is on terrain so steep that loggers’ machines couldn’t even access it.

“The idea that we’re going to mechanically thin our way out of the high-severity fire risk that we face on the west slope of the High Sierra is uninformed,” Hurteau says. “I don’t know any federal land managers—like the actual people working on national forests—who argue that timber extraction is really the way to modify the way fire interacts with the forest.”

Developing and implementing wildfire mitigation strategies is a challenge in and of itself. Each treatment program is designed for a purpose and with certain conditions in mind, says Chad Hoffman, associate professor of fire science at . Forest managers have to think about everything from funding to topography to social tolerance in surrounding areas.

“All treatments have some conditions in which they’re just not going to work the way we think,” he says. “When I explain this to students, I say it’s like the seatbelts in my car are not the same ones we use in NASCAR.”

Thinning and burning projects have a top limit on their effectiveness. If the forest is particularly dry or the wind particularly high, a wildfire could still run right over that preventive work. And while logging sometimes gets conflated with fuels treatment projects, Hoffman adds, they have very different goals. If logging efforts are leaving piles of “slash”—downed trees, limbs and other brush—or cutting all the big, market-ready trees and sparing only the little ones that are less likely to survive a conflagration, they’re not actually reducing the severity of wildfire.

“Sometimes those objectives do align with mitigation, but sometimes they don’t,” he says. “This really comes down to being purposeful and understanding the local scenario, and being clear with what those objectives are and what we believe we’re accomplishing.”

There’s also a question of basic math: The Forest Service alone manages 193 million acres; In any given year, thinning and burning projects reach less than 2 percent of that. And that doesn’t include additional lands overseen by the National Park Service or Bureau of Land Management.

Some research has suggested that, given the scale of the area with the potential to burn in a wildfire and our inability to actively manage every square mile, there are ways of assessing highest priority areas.

“If we could treat 20 percent and it’s the right 20 percent, that’s almost as good as treating much more of the landscape,” Hoffman says.

Hanson suggests concentrating thinning projects and prescribed burns around communities.“Any effort to focus more attention, more resources, more activity, more funding on forests distant from homes is going to divert finite resources away from true home protection,” he says.

Protecting communities also means building homes and businesses with fire-resistance in mind, using materials like metal rooftops and cement composite siding. Often, homes are lost to embers ahead of “the flaming front” by up to 10 miles, Hurteau says. Once one house starts—with a spark that catches on dry leaves in a rain gutter or drifts into an attic through a vent—the fire spreads house to house.

There’s also a need for improved warning systems to give people earlier notice to evacuate and more assistance with getting out of their homes. By most accounts, many residents of Paradise, California, were signaled to leave only by neighbors honking car horns and yelling.

One of the most pernicious factors in last year’s wildfire season is the one that the federal government has tried the hardest to ignore. In the midst of climate change, some of the worst-hit parts of California had seen barely any rain for months prior to the biggest blazes.

“When fire weather is high and extreme, the weather is going to be, overwhelmingly, the factor that drives how fast the fire spreads, not the type of vegetation or how dense it is,” says Hanson. In fact, an analysis of 1,500 wildfires over three decades that he coauthored found the forests with the least environmental protections and the most logging burned most intensely, all other factors being equal.

As tough as it may be for hikers and homeowners to accept, some forests might simply have to burn. Doing so would naturally reset the density of foliage and improve ecosystems’ overall health

“I don’t think there’s any way that we cut our way out of wildfires,” Hurteau says. “These are flammable landscapes. A lot of the species evolved with fire as a disturbance process, and we’ve been intervening in that with fire suppression for a long time. It’s critical that we actually begin to restore fire to these ecosystems in an ecologically appropriate manner.”

The Forest Service seems to be taking this science into account. During a conference on wildfire in May, Victoria Christiansen, the Forest Service’s interim chief and a career forester and firefighter, pointed to fuel buildup, drought, and climate change as drivers behind worsening fires. But the most significant component, she said, is the 120 million people who currently live in the wildland-urban interface—the area most at risk of wildfire. Protecting those residences and businesses has driven up fire suppression costs to the point that they currently consume more than half the agency’s budget..

The US fire season is now year-round, and fires are burning at greater frequency, size and severity than they did half a century ago, Christiansen added. Twenty years ago, it was rare to see a wildfire grow to more than 100,000 acres. In 2017, more than 12 fires burned that much acreage.

The agency plans to respond by helping to create fire-adapted communities, Christiansen said. Prescribed fires, and even allowing unplanned wildfire to burn, will simply be part of the future.

For logging companies to be effective partners in the fight against wildfire, some may have to rethink how they do business—and pull themselves out of a slump. The last three decades have seen a sharp decline in the number of board-feet coming out of national forests—.

In response, the Forest Service is extending “stewardship contracts” from 10 to 20 years in an effort to increase the market for wood products in areas where mills are scarce. Categorical exclusions available for wildfire mitigation projects, allowing them to speed past environmental reviews, have also increased.

Finding new uses for slash piles and other leftovers will be key to creating a more sustainable industry. Products made from the “woody biomass” removed in thinning projects could include vineyard posts, animal bedding, firewood, or laminated wood used in flooring and occasionally in construction as a replacement for concrete, says Kim Carr with the National Forest Foundation, the nonprofit partner of the U.S. Forest Service.

“If we can create a market for that, then we wouldn’t have to resort to piling it and burning it, and it could start to pay its way out of the woods,” Carr says.

Large thinning projects could create enough of a supply to build small-diameter sawmills, according to Russ Vaagen, of . The Washington-based company produces cross-laminated timber and glue-laminated beams from smaller trees. “It has the opportunity to not only offset some of the cost, but make the whole process of forest restoration profitable” he says. “Most importantly, it can be done without harming the aesthetic of the overall forest if done appropriately.”

Some outdoor advocates, however, still argue that the current push for wildfire mitigation is first and foremost a smokescreen for logging interests. And the battle shows no signs of letting up: In late December, the president issued an executive order seeking to open 3.5 million acres of national forest to timber harvest.

“The need for some active management in some places as a way of addressing fire risk is a real thing,” says Louis Geltman, policy director with the , a coalition of outdoor sports groups. “But there’s also a dynamic of proponents of the timber industry and members of Congress on the right who really want to just use fire as a reason to get the cut out.”

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This past Saturday, January 4, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist for the University of California Los Angeles, on his blog, WeatherWest.com. In the post, Swain warned ofÌę an “extreme offshore wind and fire-weather event” in Southern California in the coming days.

Two days later, Swain where he again sounded alarm bells for Los Angeles. “The quite serious extreme wind and fire-weather threat in Southern California—it is going to affect millions of people and potentially cause some real damage and really ramp up the threat of destructive wildfire,” Swain said. A published Swain’s comments.

On Tuesday, January 7, wildfires erupted across Southern California, with the largest blaze igniting in the Pacific Palisades region of Santa Monica. Whipped by extremely high winds, the inferno enveloped thousands of homes and businesses and killed at least five people. Hundreds of thousands of residents evacuated as the blazes roared through neighborhoods across Southern California, including Altadena, Pasadena, and Pacific Palisades. As of the publishing of this story, the fires were zero percent contained.

We caught up with Swain to talk about the conditions that led him to post his warnings.

What dynamics led you to predict an extreme fire event in Southern California this week?
SWAIN: This was an extraordinarily well-predicted extreme weather and fire risk event, and I wasn’t the only person who saw it coming. The national weather service gave strong messaging—Red Flag, high-wind watch. These are tiers of warnings that are rarely issued. We saw the extreme winds coming to Los Angeles perhaps a week or so out. But more importantly, we knew that the dry conditions across Southern California were exceptional. That has been cumulative, over months. So, if a big bad wind event came along before the first rains came, we knew that the fire danger would be bad.

But going further back in time, the past two years were very wet in Southern California—historically wet in some areas. People celebrated that the drought was over, and it was. We aren’t seeing long-term drought right now, but we’re seeing something different, which is called hydroclimate whiplash. That’s where you go from extreme wet to extreme dry. So, we had extremely wet weather and then the driest six-to-nine month stretch ever observed. This sequence matters in Southern California, because what you see burning isn’t mature forest but rather grass and brush, which grows in periods of high moisture.

What role did climate play in these fires?
There are two climate connections. In a warming climate we’re seeing wetter wet periods and drier dry periods, but it’s warmer all of the time. That’s a dangerous sequence. You have these increasingly wide swings between extreme wet and extreme dry, which leads to the abundant growth of grass, brush, and vegetation that burns easily. We also see hotter summers and drier falls and early winter, which extends fire season into the winter. And as you extend the fire season, it starts to overlap with the season of strong offshore winds. Having high winds in January isn’t too unusual. But having an abundance of vegetation as dry as it is right now is not typical. That’s the other dangerous component.

We actually saw this danger coming nine months out. Of course you can’t pinpoint the exact dates. But we saw that the summer was the hottest on record across Southern California, followed by a heat wave in the fall that baked and dried out the vegetation. And it hasn’t rained. Each piece of this contributed in a way that makes ecological and meteorological sense.

What similarities do you see between this and the Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Colorado, back in December, 2021?
I see some parallels. It was a bone-dry fall and start to winter in Colorado when the Marhsall Fire sparked. Of course dry winters are more typical in Front Range Colorado than they are in coastal California. But in 2021 in Colorado we hadn’t seen snow by late December, and then we had an extreme downslope wind storm. The winds were actually more extreme during the Marshall Fire.

A lot has been written about the fire danger as the wildland-urban interface continues to expand.Ìę
The Marshall Fire was definitely a mixed wildland/urban fire where the fire went from open spaces and rural areas into neighborhoods, where it then burned structure to structure, block by block. The Southern California fires are more like urban fires than a true wildland fire. They started close to densely populated areas and the moved quickly into town centers and more neighborhoods. This wasn’t a true wildland-urban interface fire. In some of these city areas it’s just spreading from the house, to the PetCo, to the mall, to the gas station.

When winds are that extreme there doesn’t need to be an abundance of vegetation for it to spread. But like the Marshall Fire, we are seeing it spread up creek corridors and parks like a candle wick. The vegetation found in urban parks, open space, and even medians is still fuel, even if it gets irrigated.

If scientists predicted fires, why have they been so devastating?
It’s hard for even me to fathom, but these fires would have been worse had we not had the predictions. The warnings led to preemptive positioning of aircraft and fire crews. Had the predictions not been as good, you would have seen fewer firefighters and crews in place in those first hours. And it was the work that people did during those first few hours that probably saved hundreds of lives. There could have been an incredible loss of life in this scenario, and we came close to it in Pacific Palisades. California has a veritable army of firefighters in Los Angeles, the LA City and local departments, CAL Fire, Cal Office of Emergency Services. But yes, this is still what we see—under conditions this powerful, this kind of destruction can still happen. I don’t see this as a failure of firefighting. I see it as a tragic lesson in the limits of what firefighting can achieve under conditions that are this extreme.

This interview was edited for space and clarity.Ìę

Organizations Accepting Donations to Help Those Affected by the Fires

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Colorado elk are renowned for their deafening bugle and pointy antlers—but alas, not for their belaying skills.

On January 3, Ben Hake, the head of recreation in Lake City, Colorado received a call from two climbers atÌęthe . A bull elk, they said, had become ensnared in a climbing rope and was stuck on a steep hillside.

“I couldn’t believe what they were telling me,” Hake said. “We’ve never seen elk on that trail. It’s an old deer trail but we didn’t seen seeÌętoo many animals use it once the ice climbers started using it.”

But sure enough, when Hake arrived at the scene a short time later, he saw the massive elk tangled in an orange rope on an access trail to a pair ofÌęice climbing walls called Beer Garden and Dynamite Shack. Climbers run a rope along the steep and slippery pathway and use the hand line when ascending or descending, Hake said.

A local official with the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife had called the regional office in Gunnison, which sent along wildlife biologists. Alyssa Meier, one of the biologists who arrived on the scene, said she was not surprised to receive a call about a stuck elk. But the details of the elk’s entanglement were strange.

“Hammocks, Christmas lights, patio furniture—it’s pretty common for males to get stuck,” she toldÌę°żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ.Ìę“A climbing rope was a new one.”

Meier drove to Lake City alongside another biologist, Anna Markey, and seasonal technician Paul Rivera. A crowd of climbers and town officials had congregated below the elk by the time they arrived an hour or so later.

Meier tranquilized the elk “so they could approach the stressed animal.” They placed a balaclava over the elk’s face to protect its eyes from the sun and to calm it, and then the three cut the rope to free the elk.

But that’s when a new challenge arose—the crew had to stabilize the sedated elk, or else it would slip down the trail and tumble off of a 15-foot ledge.

“If he would have slid off the ledge, this wouldn’t be a happy story,” Markey toldÌę°żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ.Ìę

Local climbers tied their own ropes to the elk, ran the rigging over a tree, and created a hauling system. Then Hake and six others pulled on the rope to raise the elk a few inches, so that they could then attach another rope to lower it down.

“It was so heavy—there were seven of us and we were giving it everything we could just to get tension onto the elk,” he said. “I don’t know what he weighed, but he was big.”

Meier estimated the elk weighed between 650 and 800 pounds, and it had scratches on its snout and face, likely from antler jabs during the rutting season. “He wasn’t the biggest elk I’ve seen, but he was doing well,” she said.

The haul system worked, and the crew was able to safely lower the sedated elk to flat ground. Meier said she administered an antidote for the tranquilizer, and after ten minutes or so, the elk stood up and ran away.

John Livingston, a spokesman for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife department, praised the two ice climbers who initially found the elk. Rather than try and free the animal themselves, he said, they phoned several agencies until they were put in contact with Parks and Wildlife. “You’re talking about a stressed animal with sharp hooves and antlers—I appreciate them calling the proper folks to handle this,” he said.

Meier has conducted multiple rescues of elk and deer this year. What stands out about the Lake City elk, she said, was how the community worked together to save the animal. Had it fallen off the ledge, or become too stressed, it could have died.

“The community rallied around this bull elk that they wanted to set free,” she said. “It was such a nice moment when he popped up and ran off.”

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On Saturday, January 4,ÌęPresident Joe Biden signed the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act into law. The new legislation rolls a dozen or so existing outdoor recreation-relation initiatives into one policy, which includes approval of building long-distance bike trails, the protection of rock climbing anchors in wilderness areas, and a more efficient permit process for guiding companies.

The EXPLORE Act is focused on federal public land like national parks, national forests, and areas overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. It directs the various management agencies to improve and develop new parking lots, broadband networks, accessible infrastructure, firing ranges, and restrooms at recreation sites. It also calls for improved coordination between different federal and state agencies to contain the spread of aquatic invasive species like zebra mussels.

“It will help create more fun all across the country,” Republican Congressman Bruce Westerman from Arkansas, the bill’s sponsor, Colorado Public Radio when it passed the senate.

The legislation also puts to rest a simmering problem within the rock climbing community by officially sanctioning the use of bolts as fixed anchors in wilderness areas. This became an issue earlier in 2024 when some public areas proposed bans on permanent safety anchorsÌęin national parks and national forests. “Passing this bill in a single legislative session is a testament to the growing power of the climbing advocacy movement,” Heather Thorne, executive director of the nonprofit Access Fund, . “In the years to come, I hope our federal leaders continue to work together to protect public lands, the agencies that manage those lands, and sustainable climbing access, which enjoys broad, bipartisan support from legislators and climbers across the nation.”

Also cause for celebration among some segments of the outdoors community: a simpler, more streamlined process for guiding companies to get permits.

The EXPLORE Act includes measures to help address the housing crisis in gateway communities, such as investing in more public-private partnerships. It also reauthorizes the Forest Service to use administrative buildings as housing.

Several sections of the new law are devoted to increasing access to the outdoors, for veterans, young people, disabled people, and members of underserved communities. It renews the Every Kid Outdoors Act, a program started under President Obama that grants every fourth grader in the U.S. and their family free entry to all national parks and federal public lands for a year.

In addition to installing broadband at federal recreation sites, the act directs public land managers to modernize administrative processes, calling on the national parks to develop a digital America the Beautiful pass. It also introduces a pilot program to improve the accuracy of visitation data, particularly for historically hard-to-document activities such as dispersed camping.

“Today’s passage of the EXPLORE Act will supercharge the outdoor recreation industry and is a victory for our economy, our communities, our quality of life, and our shared connection to the outdoors,” Jessica Wahl Turner, president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, said in when the senate approved the bill on December 19. “By advancing this transformative legislation, Congress has shown its commitment to ensuring every American has access to world-class outdoor experiences, from our backyard to the backcountry, while supporting the businesses, workers, and communities who make those experiences possible.”

The new legislation had bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress. Outdoor policy has become a common ground for lawmakers and advocates from both parties, like the bipartisan grassroots opposition that sprung up against a plan to build golf courses and hotels in several Florida state parks this summer.

For the Biden administration, the EXPLORE Act boosts and helps solidify an already robust environmental record. The outgoing president designated seven new national monuments and expanded others during his term. In 2022, he reestablished the Federal Interagency Council on Outdoor Recreation (FICOR), a group dedicated to making the outdoors more accessible to a greater number of people. The America the Beautiful initiative boosted conservation efforts across government agencies, and his administration frequently engaged with tribal partners in decisionmaking about their ancestral lands.

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When we dream of outdoor recreation destinations, it’s usually best-in-class spots like Yosemite, or wild and remote places like Patagonia and Everest—the types of places that you can read about in the travel section of this very publication. But, of course, most people aren’t introduced to wilderness and our favorite sports on the most scenic trails and the raddest crags. °żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ’s editors are no exception. Here, they fondly recall the local parks and other little pockets of natureÌęthat opened them up to a whole world of outdoor adventuring.

South Table Mountain, Golden, Colorado

I’m spoiled: I grew up at the foot of the Rockies in Golden, Colorado. The hiking trails started just a short walk from my front door on South Table Mountain, a flat-topped volcanic plateau blasted by winds and covered in Prairie grass and prickly pear cactus. My friends and I lovingly referred to South Table as “The Mesa,” and over the years it was our go-to destination when we needed adventure or some space from our parents. As a youngster, these outings revolved around wildlife-spotting, flying kites, and gazing at the Denver skyline to the east. As I entered adolescence, my trips to the Mesa, admittedly, reflected my bottomless teenage desire for boy-mayhem. It became the place to shoot BB guns and slingshots, light off fireworks, and later, sneak a few puffs of cannabis.

When I was 17, the Mesa became the focal point for my budding interest in political protest. In 1998, local developers in Denver tried to woo apparel giant Nike to build a soaring campus atop North Table Mountain. My buddies and I hated the plan, as did most everyone in our neighborhood. On a windy summer afternoon, three of us hiked to the summit of The Mesa carrying lumber, tools, and bedsheets. We erected a massive sign that read “NO NIKE” that was clearly visible from the neighborhood 1300 feet below. The sign stood for several days until a violent gust blew it over the side. Nike never did build that campus on The Mesa, and I couldn’t be happier. —Fred Dreier, articles editor, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű

The Arroyos, Northern New Mexico

I used to spend weekends on epic road trips to far-flung climbing, camping, or running destinations, but between the pandemic and motherhood, my adventures have moved closer to home. I’ve fallen in love with the outdoors all over again exploring the web of arroyos that run down the road from my home north of Santa Fe. While you catch the occasional glimpse of a far-off mountain range, most of the vistas are flat, desert stretches, and the sand is not my favorite terrain on which to run. But I rarely see another person out there, and it’s BLM land, so my dogs can run free alongside me. My backyard trails have taught me to appreciate the beauty in more understated outdoor spaces and have reminded me that an adventure doesn’t have to be epic to be worthwhile. —Abigail Wise, digital director, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű

Carkeek Park, Seattle, WA

Growing up in Seattle, Washington, there were ample nearby opportunities to experience the outdoors. But as far as I was concerned, the absolute best spot was 220-acre Carkeek Park, just a couple miles from my parents’ house. It contained all the ecosystems that make the lowland Pacific Northwest special: a beach blanketed with dark pebbles and driftwood; a creek where my preschool watched salmon spawning every fall; and lush woods full of sword ferns and cedars.

Carkeek also had an elite playground, the centerpiece of which was a 25-foot slide shaped like a 3-dimensional salmon (you climb in the mouth and pop out the tail). We went there for picnics, birthday parties, class trips, and to get some fresh air on weekend mornings. I was free to run and climb and explore in this slice of nature, and it always felt like there was no limit to the treasures I might discover (usually cool rocks, the perfect stick, 0r sites to build fairy houses). I still go to Carkeek sometimes when I’m visiting my parents, to jog on the trails through the woods or watch the sunset from the beach. It always makes me feel like a little kid in an endlessly delightful world. —Miyo McGinn, assistant editor, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű

Carderock Crag, Maryland

Growing up as an aspiring rock climber in the nation’s capital, my options were limited. I learned to climb on a summer trip to Looking Glass Rock in North Carolina when I was 13 and fell head-over-heels for the sport. But when I returned home to D.C., I was too young to drive and had little interest in pulling on plastic. I couldn’t make the journey out to Seneca Rocks or the New River Gorge in West Virginia, but I could take two buses and a long static rope to Carderock, a tiny crag on the Potomac river near the kayaking mecca of Great Falls.

The flaky mica-schist was too soft to place proper gear into, which was fine by me because I had no money for a rack of cams, but I took my copy of Freedom of the Hills and built top-rope anchors in the trees above the cliff face. My friends and I could climb the same 40 foot face for hours before we got bored. My time at that scruffy crag propelled me into bigger mountains later in life, including scaling a few big walls in Zion, buffeted by the confident ropework I learned in Carderock, Maryland. —Jake Stern, digital editor, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű

Elk Mountain, Scranton, PA

I grew up on the Severn River, which fed into the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. We were always on the water. We swam—I remember a neighborhood raft and mudfights with the other kids, diving deep for cold stinky handfuls—and went crabbing and waterskiing. Later we windsurfed. Most summer and fall weekends, my family raced sailboats in different places around the bay.

When I was 13, my parents also, bless them, took us skiing: geared up four kids, loaded the station wagon, and drove five hours to Elk Mountain in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Skiing—my Maryland friends and I were so used to waterskiing that we called it snow skiing—was where I made my own strongest connection to nature. I remember the look and colors and lifts at Elk Mountain, the excitement of the surroundings and movement, and wanting to go every chance I could. One spring day I boarded the chairlift with my dad laughing and saying, “This is so much fun.” A few minutes later, he said, “You know, that makes a parent feel good, to hear that.” We began taking one or two trips to Vermont each year with other families and friends, and I started making decisions around skiing. When I applied to colleges, I only looked north. I went to Vermont, and after that moved West in part for the skiing and climbing, which had become even more central to my life. I thought I would miss the water and bay, but never did. —Alison Osius, senior editor, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű

Shu Swamp Nature Preserve, Mill Neck, New York

I feel infinitely lucky that I grew up in the type of house where being outside was heavily prioritized (thanks, Mom and Dad, for not letting us have cable). In an effort to keep us outdoors for as long as possible, my parents frequented Shu Swamp in my early years. Less than 15 minutes from home, this preserve offered everything a young adventurer could possibly want: mud, fresh streams, and a large pondÌęfilled with catfish that we would feed old bread.

Shu Swamp was the perfect place to be year-round. Winter offered endless questions about how catfish swim under ice, spring brought squishy mud to get your shoes as dirty as possible, summer brought bright green shade, and fall let the foliage shine. I have endless memories of walking across downed trees with friends, and the preserve even showed up as I aged—pulling into the parking lot to switch drivers during driver’s ed, serving as a haven while I was home during the worst of the pandemic. Shu Swamp is forever an, “if you know, you know” spot for those I grew up with, especially because of those weird-looking catfish. —Jamie Aranoff, digital editor, SKI

The Woods at the End of the Gravel Road, West Virginia

I spent my early years in a house at the end of a gravel road in a neighborhood on the outskirts of a small town in West Virginia. Rather than feeling like a Luke Skywalker-type, cast to the outer rim of the Empire, I actually believed that the whole universe existed right there in my backyard. Our house was bounded on two sides by the kind of temperate deciduous forest you find in Appalachia, and I explored it endlessly.

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees in hand, my dad and I would leave the front door and quickly journey to another planet entirely, one that we called “Buckland” due to the fact that we regularly spotted trophy deer there. We’d press leaves into the field guide as we identified the trees they came from: oak, maple, birch, walnut. We’d practice quiet footfalls, making a competition out of creating the least noise while crossing the crunchy leaves. We’d scramble down one hillside, cross a deep-cut creek, climb the opposite hill via a deer path, and walk until we came to the incongruous radio towerÌęthat sat in the lonely field just beyond the trees’ edge.

I especially loved a wide, thick bed of evergreen pin cushion moss that bordered one edge of our forest, upon which I would languidly lay, comfortable upon my fairy bed as summer light filtered through the trees. Looking back now, I realize our forest was really a very small patch of woods that bordered a sewage treatment plant (which you could frequently smell) at the end of a gravel road on the outskirts of a small town. But it’s still the place I learned my trees, and it’s still the place I fell in love with being outside. —Ryleigh Nucilli, contributor

A Tree On A Hill In My Childhood Backyard, Carlsbad, California

Deep in the suburban wasteland of HOAs and subdivisions, a hill in my backyard was my own wild escape. It’s the setting of a lot of my best childhood memories. My cat and I would spend hours sitting in carved-out spots under the trees that grew along the slope, watching the ants move and hearing the rustle in the leaves. (When he eventually passed at age 16, my family buried his ashes on our favorite spots on this hill.) I was just steps from the inside of my house, where I could play on my Nintendo DS or watch reruns on TV, but I preferred the feeling of squishy mud between my toes.

In sixth grade, I wanted to see how high I could climb on the most prominent tree out there. I scaled branches until I got to the highest one that could support my weight, and it’s almost like that branch was ergonomically designed to contour my back. I felt so connected and grounded that I stayed there until dinnertime. Like a young Henry David Thoreau, I even brought a notepad and wrote a poem up in that tree. That experience, plus a whole childhood of exploration on that hill, helped me become who I am as an outdoor writer and adventurer.—Emma Veidt, associate editor, Backpacker

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The Jersey Shore, Spring Lake, New Jersey

When I was a kid, at that age where you ask annoying questions, I wanted to know where the ocean ended. My dad and I were at the Jersey Shore—Spring Lake specifically—and I was mesmerized by the cresting waves. The Jersey Shore is beautiful, even if the name conjures images of spray tans, big hair, fist-pumping, and gym-tan-laundry folk. They’re there, part of the scenery, and that’s okay because the ocean is a miracle and nothing takes away from how you feel in its presence. Born in Jersey, I was there every summer of my childhood. Sun-drenched, sandy, with salt clinging to my skin—it was the first place I felt totally at ease outside. We’d collect shells, find starfish, and swim, but I could sit on the beach for hours and watch the tide.

I still remember the answer my father gave me when I asked where the ocean ended. “Nowhere,” he said. “It’s everywhere connecting everything.” —Ali Nolan, digital editor, RUN

The Woods Near My Childhood Home, Iowa

Like many immigrant parents, my mom and dad weren’t too keen on me going to friend’s houses or inviting them over to ours. But for whatever reason, they were perfectly fine with me playing outside with the neighborhood boys so long as I returned home before the streetlights came on. Between the tender ages of seven and ten, we spent summer days exploring a small wooded area at the end of our block, wading in the shallow creek and roaming the narrow dirt paths.

It was no outdoor oasis—there were used mattresses and discarded tires and Hot Cheeto bags everywhere. But the trees were a break from the monotony of churches, gas stations, and cornfields that populated the edge of our Iowa hometown. When we played there, I imagined I was in the forest from Bridge to Terabithia or The Chronicles of Narnia. Now, knowing that my home state ranks 48th in the country for access to public land, this little slice of nature is all the more precious to me. It reminds me of how important it is to protect natural spaces. A little bit of wilderness can open up a person’s entire world. —Isabella Rosario, associate editor, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű

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