system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Does holding a shirt or cloth up to your face during a fire actually keep you from breathing in smoke? If so, how does that work?
gpt
It works to a degree, because the cloth filters out some of the particulate matter - that's all smoke is at the end of the day - airborne particles as a byproduct of combustion.

BUT, there is a diminishing return with them - same reason dust masks are disposable and shouldn't be reused.

A filter will block some of what you're breathing in, but over time they get clogged with crap, so it actually concentrates what you're trying to avoid.  Ditto with things like water filters - at first they filter out the shit you don't want in your water, but after a while they've got that much shit in them that they make the water quality worse.