Narrative:

The entire day I was flying in heavy smoke from the forest fires. In the morning I had tried different altitudes and they were all bad. On all my flights my eyes were stinging and I was coughing a lot; even with wearing the oxygen the entire time. There were several times I had to tell ATC to standby throughout the day so I could finish coughing to speak. On the way back from lws I tried to climb out of the smoke and went to 14;000. No luck. ATC asked an aircraft near me when they got out of the smoke and they still hadn't at 28;000. While I was flying I got a little light headed and it lead to me throwing up while I was flying. I was able to hold it together afterwards but I still had to shoot an approach with tears rolling down my face and shaking from coughing because the smoke was so intense. Eventually I either ran out of oxygen or the bottle malfunctioned because it had been full at the beginning of the day.slow onset of biological response to heavy smoke.forest fires. Also our planes don't seal up very well so a lot of smoke from outside was getting inside even with all vents closed and blowers off.to do the best I could with the circumstances given. I slowed down my speeds on arrival and approach so I could do my best to stay ahead of the airplane with the challenges that were arising. I have made a decision for my personal longevity and safety; that I will not be ok with flying in those circumstances again; and I'll be checking in with a doctor today because I still haven't stopped coughing. We need to find better solutions for flying in poor air quality; or I suggest that if we have an index above a certain threshold that we ground the planes. I realize this can be a huge impact on operations. I also realize many pilots have been able to climb and get above the smoke so that it's less of a factor; but I would really hope that no pilot ends up in the situation I did all day yesterday again.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Pilot reported heavy smoke from wildfires and becoming sick while flying because of the smoke.

Narrative: The entire day I was flying in heavy smoke from the forest fires. In the morning I had tried different altitudes and they were all bad. On all my flights my eyes were stinging and I was coughing a lot; even with wearing the oxygen the entire time. There were several times I had to tell ATC to standby throughout the day so I could finish coughing to speak. On the way back from LWS I tried to climb out of the smoke and went to 14;000. No luck. ATC asked an aircraft near me when they got out of the smoke and they still hadn't at 28;000. While I was flying I got a little light headed and it lead to me throwing up while I was flying. I was able to hold it together afterwards but I still had to shoot an approach with tears rolling down my face and shaking from coughing because the smoke was so intense. Eventually I either ran out of oxygen or the bottle malfunctioned because it had been full at the beginning of the day.Slow onset of biological response to heavy smoke.Forest fires. Also our planes don't seal up very well so a lot of smoke from outside was getting inside even with all vents closed and blowers off.To do the best I could with the circumstances given. I slowed down my speeds on arrival and approach so I could do my best to stay ahead of the airplane with the challenges that were arising. I have made a decision for my personal longevity and safety; that I will not be OK with flying in those circumstances again; and I'll be checking in with a Doctor today because I still haven't stopped coughing. We need to find better solutions for flying in poor air quality; or I suggest that if we have an index above a certain threshold that we ground the planes. I realize this can be a huge impact on operations. I also realize many pilots have been able to climb and get above the smoke so that it's less of a factor; but I would really hope that no pilot ends up in the situation I did all day yesterday again.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.