LOS ANGELES — As wildfires scorched swaths of land in the wine country of Sonoma County in 2020, Maria Salinas harvested grapes. …“What forces us to work is necessity,” Salinas said. “We always expose ourselves to danger out of necessity, whether by fire or disaster.” As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires around the world, a new study shows that farmworkers are paying a heavy price by being exposed to high levels of air pollution. And in Sonoma County, the focus of the work, researchers found that a program aimed at determining when it was safe to work during wildfires did not adequately protect farmworkers. They recommended a series of steps to safeguard the workers’ health, including air quality monitors at work sites, stricter requirements for employers, emergency plans and trainings in various languages, post-exposure health screenings and hazard pay.