The January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires released large amounts of air pollutants and exposed millions of residents to smoke containing hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
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.
The James M. Inhofe National Defence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 established that certain illnesses and diseases are to be deemed as proximately caused by employment in federal fire protection activities. However, cancers affecting female wildland firefighters were not included on this list and are recommended for further evaluation.
The search and recovery process of fatal fire victims is one of the greatest challenges in forensic anthropology, especially in large-scale wildland fire disasters.
RATIONALE Wildfires have increased in frequency and intensity due to climate change and now contribute to nearly half of the annual average of fine particulate matter in the US. While the effects of short-term wildfire-PM2.5 exposure on respiratory diseases are well-described, the impact of climate change on longer duration wildfire-PM2.5 mortality is unknown.
Wildfires are impacting communities globally, with California wildfires often breaking records of size and destructiveness. Knowing how communities are affected by these wildfires is vital to understanding recovery. We sought to identify impacted communities' post-wildfire needs and characterize how those needs change over time.
The area burned in the western United States during the 2020 fire season was the greatest in the modern era. Here we show that the number of human-caused fires in 2020 also was elevated, nearly 20% higher than the 1992–2019 average.