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Wildfires adversely impact air quality and public health worldwide. Exposures to wildfire smoke are linked to adverse health outcomes, including cardiopulmonary diseases. Critical research gaps remain surrounding the underlying biological pathways leading to wildfire-induced heal...

Rationale & Objectives: Wildfire smoke is associated with short-term respiratory outcomes including asthma exacerbation in children. As investigations into developmental exposure to wildfire smoke exposure (WSE) on children’s longer-term respiratory health are sparse, w...

Wildfire smoke risks are not uniformly distributed across people and places, and the most vulnerable communities are often disproportionately impacted. This study develops a Community Health Vulnerability Index (CHVI) using three major vulnerability components: adaptive capacity,...

In response to increasing wildfire risks, California plans to expand the use of prescribed fire. We characterized the anticipated change in health impacts from exposure to smoke under a future fire-management scenario relative to a historical period (2008–2016). Using dispe...

Wildland fire (i.e., prescribed fire and wildfire) smoke exposure is an emerging public health threat, in part due to climate change. Previous research has demonstrated disparities in ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure, with Black people, among others, exposed to hi...

As the number of methods for assessing air pollution exposure proliferate there is a need to understand the utility of these metrics (and their uncertainties) for characterizing exposures in determining potential public health outcomes at different spatial and temporal resolution...

We characterized trends in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) related health burden across California residential ZIP codes (2008-2016), focusing on asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and all-cause respiratory and cardiovascular emergency department (ED) v...

With the increase in acres burned from wildfire over the last few decades, wildfire smoke is an increasing global public health threat. To date, wildfire smoke research, risk communication, and public health action has focused on short-term (or daily) smoke exposures. However, th...

Climate change factors and expanded population growth in the Wildland Urban Interface (transition zone between human structures and undeveloped wildland) contribute to a projected increase in wildfire frequency and smoke exposure. As an unregulated source of air pollution, reduci...

Although it is well established that wildfire smoke exposure can increase cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, the combined effects of non-chemical stressors and wildfire smoke remains understudied. Housing is a non-chemical stressor that is a major determinant of cardiovascul...

Importance The impact of wildfires on human health has risen dramatically in recent years. Smoke emitted from wildfire events contribute significantly to ambient air pollution both locally and distantly. While exposure to wildfire smoke has been associated with elevated respirat...

Background Smoke exposure from wildfires or residential wood burning for heat is a public health problem for many communities. Do-It-Yourself (DIY) portable air cleaners (PACs) are promoted as affordable alternatives to commercial PACs, but evidence of their effect on health outc...

Prescribed fire is applied across the United States as a fuel treatment to manage the impact of wildfires and restore ecosystems. While the recent application of prescribed fire has largely been confined to the southeastern US, the increase in catastrophic wildfires has accelerat...

The Expedited Modeling of Burn Events Results (EMBER) dataset consists of 36-km grid-spacing Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) photochemical modeling for the summer of 2023. For emissions, these simulations utilized representative monthly and day-of-week anthropogenic emiss...

The effectiveness of policies and management actions in reducing the release of excess nitrogen (N) to the environment is best assessed if N fluxes across air, land, and water are regularly quantified at relevant scales. Here we compiled 2002, 2007, and 2012 inventories of inputs...

This is an invited commentary by the journal - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on a paper they recently accepted examining longer duration wildfire smoke exposure and mortality.  This commentary focuses on highlighting t...

PurpleAir particulate matter (PM) sensors are increasingly used in the United States and other countries for real-time air quality information, particularly during wildfire smoke episodes. Uncorrected PurpleAir data can be biased and may exhibit a nonlinear response at extreme sm...

Wildfires are an increasing source of emissions into the air, with health effects modulated by the abundance and toxicity of individual species. In this work, we estimate reactive organic compounds (ROC) in western U.S. wildland forest fire smoke using a combination of observatio...

Background & objective Disposable face masks are a primary protective measure against the adverse health effects of exposure to infectious and toxic aerosols such as airborne viruses and particulate air pollutants. While the fit of high efficiency respirators is regulated in ...

Introduction: The prevalence and intensities of wildfires continue to grow world-wide, with exposures resulting in increased risk of pulmonary and cardiovascular disease. Characterizing these health risks remains difficult due to the wide landscape of exposures that can result fr...

Pine needles represent an important fuel source in coniferous forest systems in the western United States.  During forest fires, they can be easily ignited and help sustain flame on the ground. In this study, a comprehensive chemical analysis was conducted to examine oxygena...

Objectives:  Living conditions play a major role in health and well-being, particularly for the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems. Depleted housing contributes to impairment and development of disease, but how it impacts body resiliency during exposure to environmental st...

Wildland fire activity is provided in a geospatial database of polygons over the conterminous United States for the 2004 through 2017 time period. The location, timing, and size of the fires are derived from a fusion of wildland fire activity from a consistent set of national gro...

Agriculture generates ~83% of total US ammonia (NH3 ) emissions, potentially adversely impacting sensitive ecosystems through wet and dry deposition. Regions with intense livestock production, such as the dairy region of south-central Idaho, generate hotspots of NH3 emissions. Ou...

Wildland fires pose an environmental challenge that hasbeen growing in recent years, as wildfires increase inmagnitude and the use of prescribed fire has expanded toreduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. Fire is also usedthroughout the world for reducing agricultural waste and...