Wildfire and prescribed burning impacts on air quality in the United States

Altshuler, Samuel L.; Zhang, Qi; Kleinman, Michael T.; Garcia–Menendez, Fernando; Moore, Charles Thomas; Hough, Merlyn L.; Stevenson, Eric; Chow, Judith C.; Jaffe, Daniel A.; Watson, John G.

doi:10.1080/10962247.2020.1813217

Cited by 25 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…In contrast to other major pollution sources, however, eliminating natural fire processes, and their emissions, from ecosystems is not a viable strategy. As land managers work to reach sustainable fire regimes, decisions about fuel treatments and interventions, including prescribed burning, mechanical fuel reduction, and adaptation measures, must be informed by comprehensive analyses that consider fire damages, suppression and treatment costs, ecological services, climate benefits, smoke impacts, and other aspects of wildland fire (Altshuler et al., 2020 ). Given its potential effects on public health, smoke pollution can be a major component of wildfire cost‐benefit assessments.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty in Health Impact Assessments of Smoke From a Wildfire Event

Johnson

Garcia–Menendez

2022

GeoHealth

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Wildfires cause elevated air pollution that can be detrimental to human health. However, health impact assessments associated with emissions from wildfire events are subject to uncertainty arising from different sources. Here, we quantify and compare major uncertainties in mortality and morbidity outcomes of exposure to fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) pollution estimated for a series of wildfires in the Southeastern U.S. We present an approach to compare uncertainty in estimated health impacts specifically due to two driving factors, wildfire‐related smoke PM 2.5 fields and variability in concentration‐response parameters from epidemiologic studies of ambient and smoke PM 2.5 . This analysis, focused on the 2016 Southeastern wildfires, suggests that emissions from these fires had public health consequences in North Carolina. Using several methods based on publicly available monitor data and atmospheric models to represent wildfire‐attributable PM 2.5 , we estimate impacts on several health outcomes and quantify associated uncertainty. Multiple concentration‐response parameters derived from studies of ambient and wildfire‐specific PM 2.5 are used to assess health‐related uncertainty. Results show large variability and uncertainty in wildfire impact estimates, with comparable uncertainties due to the smoke pollution fields and health response parameters for some outcomes, but substantially larger health‐related uncertainty for several outcomes. Consideration of these uncertainties can support efforts to improve estimates of wildfire impacts and inform fire‐related decision‐making.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty in Health Impact Assessments of Smoke From a Wildfire Event

Johnson

Garcia–Menendez

2022

GeoHealth

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“…The O +VOC 3 trend is well correlated to the TROPOMI HCHO/NO 2 trend plotted on a reversed axis between April-August 2020, but the two trends diverge in September-October 2020 when wildfires were prevalent. Removing the wildfire days from August to October (open box) increased the ground-based O +VOC 3 , once again suggesting that wildfires contributed more VOCs than NO x to the atmosphere (Altshuler et al, 2020). The divergence between the ground-based O +VOC 3 measurements and TROPOMI satellite HCHO/NO 2 measurements during the wildfire season once again reflects the presence of elevated plumes that were measured by the satellite but not by the ground-based monitors (Schroeder et al, 2017a).…”

Section: Monthly Variation Of Ambient Gas Concentrationsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Direct measurements of ozone response to emissions perturbations in California

Lee

Anderson

et al. 2022

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. A new technique was used to directly measure O3 response to changes in precursor NOx and volatile organic compound (VOC) concentrations in the atmosphere using three identical Teflon smog chambers equipped with UV lights. One chamber served as the baseline measurement for O3 formation, one chamber added NOx, and one chamber added surrogate VOCs (ethylene, m-xylene, n-hexane). Comparing the O3 formation between chambers over a 3-hour UV cycle provides a direct measurement of O3 sensitivity to precursor concentrations. Measurements made with this system at Sacramento, California, between April–December 2020 revealed that the atmospheric chemical regime followed a seasonal cycle. O3 formation was VOC-limited (NOx-rich) during the early spring, transitioned to NOx-limited during the summer due to increased concentrations of ambient VOCs with high O3 formation potential, and then returned to VOC-limited (NOx-rich) during the fall season as the concentrations of ambient VOCs decreased and NOx increased. This seasonal pattern of O3 sensitivity is consistent with the cycle of biogenic emissions in California. The direct chamber O3 sensitivity measurements matched semi-direct measurements of HCHO/NO2 ratios from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) aboard the Sentinel-5 Precursor (Sentinel-5P) satellite. Furthermore, the satellite observations showed that the same seasonal cycle in O3 sensitivity occurred over most of the entire state of California, with only the urban cores of the very large cities remaining VOC-limited across all seasons. The O3-nonattainment days (MDA8 O3>70 ppb) have O3 sensitivity in the NOx-limited regime, suggesting that a NOx emissions control strategy would be most effective at reducing these peak O3 concentrations. In contrast, a large portion of the days with MDA8 O3 concentrations below 55 ppb were in the VOC-limited regime, suggesting that an emissions control strategy focusing on NOx reduction would increase O3 concentrations. This challenging situation suggests that emissions control programs that focus on NOx reductions will immediately lower peak O3 concentrations but slightly increase intermediate O3 concentrations until NOx levels fall far enough to re-enter the NOx-limited regime. The spatial pattern of increasing and decreasing O3 concentrations in response to a NOx emissions control strategy should be carefully mapped in order to fully understand the public health implications.

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“…Factors affecting the safety of firefighters under fire conditions include not only high temperature and radiation heat flux density, smoke, oxygen deficiency, or damage to the structure of the buildings or its components, but also harmful combustion products (Sawicki 2004 ). Compounds released during the combustion of various types of materials (including biomass, plastic-based materials and textiles and fuels) (Valavanidis et al 2008 ; Navarro et al 2019 ; Altshuler et al 2020 ; Jaffe et al 2020 ; Barros et al 2021 ) have properties that are toxic, corrosive, flammable, explosive or allergenic to the human body (Krzemińska and Szewczyńska 2020 ). Moreover, due to variable combustion conditions, the combination of released different compounds, e.g., wood smoke and diesel fuel, may act additively or even synergistically in its overall toxic effect (Adetona et al 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lifestyle and environmental factors may induce airway and systemic inflammation in firefighters

Orysiak

Młynarczyk

Piec

et al. 2022

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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Health status depends on multiple genetic and non-genetic factors. Nonheritable factors (such as lifestyle and environmental factors) have stronger impact on immune responses than genetic factors. Firefighters work is associated with exposure to air pollution and heat stress, as well as: extreme physical effort, mental stress, or a changed circadian rhythm, among others. All these factors can contribute to both, short-term and long-term impairment of the physical and mental health of firefighters. Increased levels of some inflammatory markers, such as pro-inflammatory cytokines or C-reactive protein (CRP) have been observed in firefighters, which can lead to local, acute inflammation that promotes a systemic inflammatory response. It is worth emphasizing that inflammation is one of the main hallmarks of cancer and also plays a key role in the development of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. This article presents possible causes of the development of an inflammatory reaction in firefighters, with particular emphasis on airway inflammation caused by smoke exposure.

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Wildfire and prescribed burning impacts on air quality in the United States

Cited by 25 publications

References 73 publications

Uncertainty in Health Impact Assessments of Smoke From a Wildfire Event

Uncertainty in Health Impact Assessments of Smoke From a Wildfire Event

Direct measurements of ozone response to emissions perturbations in California

Lifestyle and environmental factors may induce airway and systemic inflammation in firefighters

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