October 31, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
This site gives a lot of information about the _short_term_ damage from smoke inhalation (and fire):
http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic538.htm
this site goes into the long-term effects, particularly of wood smoke:
http://www.webcom.com/~bi/health-effects.html

The physical damage to the lungs is one aspect of the problem. Longer term, one can worry about carcinogenic compounds in the smoke. Soot contains large aromatic hydrocarbons, and these can be carcinogenic. Since the time frame is so much longer, the cancer rates are harder to study than more immediate toxicity. But when an effect is small or slow enough to be "harder to study", it's that much more improbable therefore less worrisome. Which is not to say the effect is not there or is negligible. You see, I don't have a solid quantitative answer for you! It would take more research to find out exactly what is known, and after learning what is known there would surely be questions for further research. Perhaps you will be one of the scientists who studies the problem.

There has been some public discussion about potential long-term effects of the dust in the air from the collapse of the World Trade Center - not purely smoke, but the issues would be relevant to your question.