In Los Angeles, a bright pink firefighting product at the heart of a controversy

In Los Angeles, a bright pink firefighting product at the heart of a controversy
In Los Angeles, a bright pink firefighting product at the heart of a controversy

LOS ANGELES – Amid the fires, some neighborhoods in Los Angeles are seeing life in rosy colors. To fight against the fires that have ravaged the city since the beginning of January, a bright pink fire retardant is dropped by plane on certain areas of the Californian metropolis, as you can see in our video at the top of the article.

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Used in the United States since 1963, this product, called Phos-chek, contains four different types of heavy metals harmful to humans and the environment, according to a study by researchers at the University of Southern California published in 2024. Among them, we find chromium or even cadmium.

This would explain the increase in toxic metals in soil and water observed after the fires. Until then, this phenomenon was attributed to ashes. According to the study, nearly 380 tons of heavy metals were released in the United States between 2009 and 2021, including a third in Southern California, which is regularly affected by fires.

Quoted by the New York Times, the company Perimeter Solutions, which manufactures the product, for its part refutes these accusations, explaining that the researchers analyzed a bad version of Phos-chek. In 2022, employees of the country’s Forest Service also unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit, accusing this chemical substance of being ineffective against fires, in addition to threatening the environment.

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