Misery in Salem, Oregon

We live in Salem, Oregon in a newer housing development with gas fireplaces. However, we are across the street from the county/city limits and the people in the county burn all winter long.

The smoke inside my closed up house is so bad that my asthma has turned into COPD. I can’t open the windows most of the time and I can’t get the smoke out of our home. We run several large HEPA air cleaners throughout our home and it doesn’t seem to do a thing except make the filters dirty.

I thought perhaps we had a leak issue with out house, but in reading these other stories, it’s pretty clear that it’s not just us. This is a health crisis for everyone because smoke is a carcinogen that has the ability to impact even the very healthy. Even my non-lung compromised family members have burning eyes and noses from the smoke, and now it’s looking like there’s not much we can do to stop it short of moving. Not sure where we can go to escape this issue as it seems to be prevalent worldwide!