Thousands of miles away, my drowsy wife was none too pleased to be woken up so early by my frantic messages. Sitting in my parent’s home in Mayo, I was shocked by the fiery images of hurricane-fuelled wildfires consuming vast swathes of neighbourhoods in Los Angeles county. My wife, on the other hand, took some persuading to open the curtains to our balcony, but she then was jolted fully awake, as a distant wall of orange flame illuminated the Glendale horizon. Black smoke filled the north-eastern sky as in a Hollywood post-apocalyptic blockbuster. Thankfully, that was as bad as it got for our location, as the winds eased and firefighters heroically battled the several blazes that had broken out over the week. After a day’s evacuation my wife was able to move back into our apartment. Many others were not so lucky, with at least 27 people killed, 12,000 structures and thousands of acres of habitat destroyed, alongside thousands of people displaced to date. When I arrived back to Los Angeles, the main threats facing the areas near the wildfires came from dangerous particulates in the air, as the winds carried all sorts of airborne contaminants from the charred remains of vegetation and buildings.