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Wildfires have increased in frequency and area burned, trends expected to continue with climate change. Among other effects, fires release pollutants into the atmosphere, representing a risk to human health and downwind terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. While human health risks...

Invited Question and Answer article for Nature Cardiovascular Research on Particulate Matter.Recent air-quality alerts in major cities due to the wildfires in Canada, Hawaii and Greece have put fine particulate matter (PM) pollution and consequent health issues into the spotlight...

Accurate fire emissions inventories are crucial to predict the impacts of wildland fires on air quality and atmospheric composition. Two traditional approaches are widely used to calculate fire emissions: a satellite-based top-down approach and a fuels-based bottom-up approach. H...

During the 2019 Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) study, the NASA DC-8 carried out in situ chemical measurements in smoke plumes emitted from wildfires and agricultural fires in the contiguous United States. The DC-8 payload include...

Fires emit sufficient sulfur to affect local and regional air quality and climate. This study analyzes SO2 emission factors and variability in smoke plumes from US wildfires and agricultural fires, as well as their relationship to sulfate and hydroxymethanesulfonate (HMS) fo...

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) resulting from wildland fire is a significant public health risk in the United States (U.S.). The existing stationary monitoring network and the tools used to alert the public of smoke conditions, such as the Air Quality Index or NowCast, are not o...

During April 30–August 4, 2023, smoke originating from wildfires in Canada affected most of the contiguous United States. CDC used National Syndromic Surveillance Program data to assess numbers and percentages of asthma-associated emergency department (ED) visits on days wi...

Estimating population exposure to particulate matter during wildfires can be difficult because of insufficient monitoring data to capture the spatiotemporal variability of smoke plumes. Chemical transport models (CTMs) and satellite retrievals provide spatiotemporal data that may...

Assessing the effectiveness and measuring the performance of fuel treatments and other wildfire risk mitigation efforts are challenging endeavors. Perhaps the most complicated is quantifying avoided impacts. In this study, we show how probabilistic counterfactual analysis can hel...

Objectives: California plans to substantially increase the use of prescribed fire to reduce risk of catastrophic wildfires. Although for a beneficial purpose, prescribed fire smoke may still pose a health concern, especially among sensitive populations. We sought to understand co...

Over the past century, water temperatures of many headwater streams in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) have steadily risen, shrinking endangered salmonid habitats. Warming of stream reaches in the PNW can further accelerate due to wildfires burning forest stands that provide stream s...

Communities across the world are experiencing a myriad of impacts from intensifying extreme heat, flood, drought, and wildfire events due to climate change. Further impacts can be experienced due to nearby contaminated sites and waste management facilities that are either activel...

To combat the Wildfire Crisis in the U.S., prescribed fire is being instituted at an unprecedented scale. While there are documented examples of the ability of prescribed fire to reduce the size and intensity of individual fires, and subsequently smoke produced, prescribed fire a...

Globally, wildfires are increasing in extent, frequency, and severity. Although global climate change is a major driver and large-scale governance interventions are essential, focusing on governance at smaller scales is of great importance for fostering resilience to wildfires. I...

Communities across the United States are enduring, often unexpectedly, the effects of extreme events, such as excessive heat, prolonged droughts, extreme floods, and wildfires. In places where contaminated sites and waste management facilities are also present, communities must c...

Wildland fires, which includes both wild and prescribed fires, and agricultural fires in sum is one of the largest sources of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions to the atmosphere in the United States. Although wildland fire PM2.5 emissions are primarily composed of carbona...

Wildfire activity is increasing and can be linked to climate change effects, including rising global temperatures and more frequent drought conditions. Wildfire emissions impact human health and sensitive ecosystems, particularly in the western United States where large fire freq...

The effort with FY19 funding was for further experimentation and refinement of a numerical model with benzene, in support of contamination resulting for California wildfires. This year's request (and corresponding change in FY) is aimed at unstudied organics. This work is also pa...

Wildland fire smoke contains hazardous levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a pollutant shown to adversely effect health. Estimating fire attributable PM2.5 concentrations is key to quantifying the impact on air quality and subsequent health burden. This is a challenging pr...

Wildfire risks and losses have increased over the last 100 years, associated with population expansion, land use and management practices, and global climate change, with more than 30% of the global land surface experiencing significant fire frequency. While there have been exten...

This study is a workflow development for the analysis, identification, and categorization of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) using gas chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS) with non-targeted analysis (NTA) and suspect screening techniques. The beha...

Particulate matter (PM) is a major primary pollutant emitted during wildland fires that has the potential to pose significant health risks to individuals/communities who live and work in areas impacted by smoke events. Limiting exposure is the principal measure available to mitig...

Estimating the Acute Health Impacts of Fire-Orginated PM2.5 Exposure During the 2017 California Wildfires: Sensitivity to Choices of Inputs

Social vulnerability analysis has been unable to deliver outcomes that reflect the reality of vulnerability and its consequences in an era characterised by accelerating environmental change. In this work, we used critical discourse analysis and key informant interviews to underst...

Forest biological disturbance agents (BDAs) are insects, pathogens, and parasitic plants that cause tree decline and mortality. Traditionally, BDAs were thought to increase the likelihood and severity of fire by adversely affecting forest health. However, there are a wide range o...