Season seven, was modeled on the real-life effects of nuclear detonation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, especially the haze after the fallout, and fires still burning from the detonation.
Will mentions that he calls the roving band of survivors 'Stalkers', a nod to the Tarkovsky film of the same name, authored by the Strugatsky brothers, writers of the original novella 'Roadside Picnic'. The titular Stalkers scavenged for items of worth in an uninhabitable area called The Zone, after the passage of an alien civilization leaves anomalous effects in its wake.
The production team allegedly bought up all the smoke grenades in the country to dramatize the nuclear apocalypse according, Inside Fear the Walking Dead Season 7: Part 1 (2021).