Impact of smoke from prescribed burning: Is it a public health concern?

Haikerwal, Anjali; Reisen, Fabienne; Sim, Malcolm Ross; Abramson, Michael J.; Meyer, C. P.; Johnston, Fay H.; Dennekamp, Martine

doi:10.1080/10962247.2015.1032445

Cited by 60 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…The same is likely true for fire smoke, although there has been less research on the topic (Reid et al 2016a(Reid et al , 2016b. Smoke exposure is known to disproportionately affect people with lung diseases and the evidence concerning impacts on heart diseases is emerging (Rappold et al 2012, Haikerwal et al 2015a, 2015b. A few studies have also demonstrated adverse impacts on infants and unborn babies (Jayachandran 2009, Holstius et al 2012, and on people with lower socioeconomic status (Reid et al 2016a, 2016bEnvironmental Research, Rappold et al 2012.…”

Section: Smoke Impacts On Human Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

A transdisciplinary approach to understanding the health effects of wildfire and prescribed fire smoke regimes

Williamson

Bowman

Price

et al. 2016

Environ. Res. Lett.

102

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Section: Smoke Impacts On Human Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

A transdisciplinary approach to understanding the health effects of wildfire and prescribed fire smoke regimes

Williamson

Bowman

Price

et al. 2016

Environ. Res. Lett.

102

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“…Prescribed burning is widely used in Australia as a means of reducing bushfire risk (Boer et al, 2009); however, these low to moderate intensity fires often take place close to population centres, under weather conditions that are conducive to pollution build up, sometimes on a regional scale (e.g., Williamson et al, 2016, Fig. 2), with potential health impacts on nearby population (Haikerwal et al, 2015). 25 Most of what is known about the VOC emissions from Australian temperate forest fires to date comes from opportunistic measurements of bushfire plumes impacting measurement sites such as the University of Wollongong (Paton-Walsh et al, 2005Rea et al, 2016) or the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station (Lawson et al, 2015) or captured from space using satellite sensors (Young and Paton-Walsh, 2011;Glatthor et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emissions of trace gases from Australian temperate forest fires: emission factors and dependence on modified combustion efficiency

Guérette¹,

Paton-Walsh²,

Desservettaz³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Abstract. We characterised trace gas emissions from Australian temperate forest fires through a mixture of in situ open-path FTIR measurements spectroscopy and selective ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS) and White cell FTIR spectroscopy of grab samples. We report emission factors for a total of 25 trace gas species measured in smoke from nine prescribed fires.We find significant dependence on modified combustion efficiency (MCE) for some species, although regional differences indicate that the use of MCE as a proxy may be limited. We also find that the fire-integrated MCE values derived from our in 5 situ on-the-ground open-path measurements are not significantly different from those reported for airborne measurements of smoke from fires in the same ecosystem. We then compare our average emission factors to those measured for fires in North American temperate ecosystems and for fires in Australian savanna and find that, although emission factors of some species agree within 20%, others differ by a factor of 2 or more. This indicates that the use of ecosystem-specific emission factors is warranted for applications involving emissions from Australian forest fires.

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“…While the potential hazard from prescribed fire smoke has been recognised (Haikerwal et al, 2015), most of our understanding of prescribed fire smoke exposure stems from research into wildfires (Reisen and Brown, 2009). There have been studies of firefighter exposure at prescribed fires (Miranda et al, 2010;Reisen et al, 2011;Adetona et al, 2013) but the effect of prescribed burning on smoke exposure to the local community has rarely been addressed in research (Reisen and Brown, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local and regional smoke impacts from prescribed fires

Price

Horsey

Jiang³

2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Smoke from wildfires poses a significant threat to affected communities. Prescribed burning is conducted to reduce the extent and potential damage of wildfires, but produces its own smoke threat. Planners of prescribed fires model the likely dispersion of smoke to help manage the impacts on local communities. Significant uncertainty remains about the actual smoke impact from prescribed fires, especially near the fire, and the accuracy of smoke dispersal models.To address this uncertainty, a detailed study of smoke dispersal was conducted for one small (52 ha) and one large (700 ha) prescribed fire near Appin in New South Wales, Australia, through the use of stationary and handheld pollution monitors, visual observations and rain radar data, and by comparing observations to predictions from an atmospheric dispersion model. The 52 ha fire produced a smoke plume about 800 m high and 9 km long. Particle concentrations (PM 2.5 ) reached very high peak values (> 400 µg m −3 ) and high 24 h average values (> 100 µg m −3 ) at several locations next to or within ∼ 500 m downwind from the fire, but low levels elsewhere. The 700 ha fire produced a much larger plume, peaking at ∼ 2000 m altitude and affecting downwind areas up to 14 km away. Both peak and 24 h average PM 2.5 values near the fire were lower than for the 52 ha fire, but this may be because the monitoring locations were further away from the fire. Some lofted smoke spread north against the ground-level wind direction. Smoke from this fire collapsed to the ground during the night at different times in different locations. Although it is hard to attribute particle concentrations definitively to smoke, it seems that the collapsed plume affected a huge area including the towns of Wollongong, Bargo, Oakdale, Camden and Campbelltown (∼ 1200 km 2 ). PM 2.5 concentrations up to 169 µg m −3 were recorded on the morning following the fire. The atmospheric dispersion model accurately predicted the general behaviour of both plumes in the early phases of the fires, but was poor at predicting fine-scale variation in particulate concentrations (e.g. places 500 m from the fire). The correlation between predicted and observed varied between 0 and 0.87 depending on location. The model also completely failed to predict the night-time collapse of the plume from the 700 ha fire.This study provides a preliminary insight into the potential for large impacts from prescribed fire smoke to NSW communities and the need for increased accuracy in smoke dispersion modelling. More research is needed to better understand when and why such impacts might occur and provide better predictions of pollution risk.

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Impact of smoke from prescribed burning: Is it a public health concern?

Cited by 60 publications

References 48 publications

A transdisciplinary approach to understanding the health effects of wildfire and prescribed fire smoke regimes

A transdisciplinary approach to understanding the health effects of wildfire and prescribed fire smoke regimes

Emissions of trace gases from Australian temperate forest fires: emission factors and dependence on modified combustion efficiency

Local and regional smoke impacts from prescribed fires

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