Topic: Smoke and Air Quality

Wildland fire is a major global driver in the exchange of aerosols between terrestrial environments and the atmosphere. This exchange is commonly quantified using emission factors or the mass of a pollutant emitted per mass of fuel burned. However, emission factors for microbes aerosolized by…

Extreme heat and wildfire smoke events are increasingly co-occurring in the context of climate change, especially in California. Extreme heat and wildfire smoke may have synergistic effects on population health that vary over space. We leveraged high-resolution satellite and monitoring data to…

Wildland fire smoke risks are not uniformly distributed across people and places, and the most vulnerable communities are often disproportionately impacted. This study develops a county level community health vulnerability index (CHVI) for the Contiguous United States (CONUS) using three major…

The behaviour of wildland fires and the dispersion of smoke from those fires can be strongly influenced by atmospheric turbulent flow. The science to support that assertion has developed and evolved over the past 100+ years, with contributions from laboratory and field observations, as well…

Climate change has contributed to increased wildfires. Wildfire smoke exposes wildlife to hazards and mortality from particulate matter on a scale larger than the area impacted by…

Prescribed burning can mitigate extreme wildfire risk and reduce total smoke emissions. Yet prescribed burns’ emissions may also contribute to smoke exposures in nearby communities. Incorporating public health considerations into forest management planning efforts may help reduce prescribed burn…

Background

Long-term improvements in air quality and public health in the continental USA were disrupted over the past decade by increased fire emissions that potentially offset the decrease in anthropogenic emissions. This study aims to estimate trends in black carbon and PM2·5…

Accentuated by climate change, catastrophic wildfires are a growing, distributed global public health risk from inhalation of smoke and dust. Underrecognized, however, are the health threats arising from fire-altered toxic metals natural to soils and plants. Here, we demonstrate that high…

The wildfires of August and September 2020 in the western part of the United States were characterized by an unparalleled duration and wide geographical coverage. A particular consequence of massive wildfires includes serious health effects due to short and long-term exposure to poor air quality…

Objectives. To describe demographic and social characteristics of US communities exposed to wildfire smoke.

Methods. Using satellite-collected data on wildfire smoke with the locations of population centers in the coterminous United States, we identified communities potentially exposed to…