human dimensions

Efforts to understand, assess, and address diversifying recovery needs have growing relevance as wildfires continue to impact communities. However, little is known about social experiences navigating gaps in assistance funding and support or “unmet needs” in post-fire spaces, particularly for indirect impacts like smoke damage.

Rapid, well‑coordinated aerial response can be an effective way to limit wildfire growth during the initial‑response period. To date, most studies of wildland fire aviation effectiveness have relied on data from aircraft provided by the United States Forest Service, while other agencies aircraft have received less attention.

Wildfires are a source of air pollution, including PM_2.5. Exposure to PM_2.5 from wildfire smoke is associated with adverse health effects including premature death and respiratory morbidity.

Chronic health effects of wildfire PM_2.5 on neurodevelopmental outcomes are largely unknown. Therefore, the effects of wildfire PM_2.5 on autism were assessed in a southern California-based pregnancy cohort using Cox proportional hazard models.

Background

Background

Rural communities are increasingly impacted by smoke produced by wildfires and forest management activties. Understanding local influences on smoke adaptation and mitigation is critical to social adaptation as fire risk continues to rise.

Aims

Background

During periods of heightened wildland fire activity in the United States, multiagency coordinating groups must prioritize among multiple on-going fires to allocate scarce suppression resources.

Multi-stakeholder planning and prioritization for ecosystem management and wildfire risk mitigation are complicated by the need to balance a multitude of values, goals, viewpoints, and interests across large landscapes.

Structure fires in the wildland–urban interface (WUI) are becoming more frequent and destructive, yet their emissions of air pollutants remain poorly quantified and are not included in national inventories. Here we present a conterminous-scale inventory of WUI-related structure fire emissions in the United States from 2000 to 2020.