Detecting changes in the heart rate of firefighters to prevent smoke inhalation and health effects

Sebastião, Raquel; Sorte, Sandra; Valente, Joana; Miranda, Ana Isabel; Fernandes, José Maria

doi:10.1007/s12530-018-9241-0

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The slope and vegetation of the different burnt fields presented the ideal conditions for this purpose [ 8 , 12 , 13 , 24 ]. A characterization of the experimental fields can be found in [ 21 , 22 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Results from [20] indicate that the most stressful FF tasks might be differentiated by the morphological measures over the electrocardiogram (ECG), namely the most stressful (e.g., car accidents, fires) and the least stressful (administrative services). Taking into consideration that CO is considered one of the air pollutants with a strong impact on the safety of the FF in the terrain [5,13], we worked on estimating CO inhalation with derived respiration through ECG and with the detection of changes in the heart rate (HR) of FFs related with alterations in CO exposure [21,22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Classification of Critical Levels of CO Exposure of Firefigthers through Monitored Heart Rate

Sebastião

Sorte

Fernandes

et al. 2021

Sensors

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Smoke inhalation poses a serious health threat to firefighters (FFs), with potential effects including respiratory and cardiac disorders. In this work, environmental and physiological data were collected from FFs, during experimental fires performed in 2015 and 2019. Extending a previous work, which allowed us to conclude that changes in heart rate (HR) were associated with alterations in the inhalation of carbon monoxide (CO), we performed a HR analysis according to different levels of CO exposure during firefighting based on data collected from three FFs. Based on HR collected and on CO occupational exposure standards (OES), we propose a classifier to identify CO exposure levels through the HR measured values. An ensemble of 100 bagged classification trees was used and the classification of CO levels obtained an overall accuracy of 91.9%. The classification can be performed in real-time and can be embedded in a decision fire-fighting support system. This classification of FF’ exposure to critical CO levels, through minimally-invasive monitored HR, opens the possibility to identify hazardous situations, preventing and avoiding possible severe problems in FF’ health due to inhaled pollutants. The obtained results also show the importance of future studies on the relevance and influence of the exposure and inhalation of pollutants on the FF’ health, especially in what refers to hazardous levels of toxic air pollutants.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Classification of Critical Levels of CO Exposure of Firefigthers through Monitored Heart Rate

Sebastião

Sorte

Fernandes

et al. 2021

Sensors

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“…Fernandes et al 2022;Xu et al 2022) that strongly impact human health (e.g. Sebastião et al 2019;D'Evelyn et al 2022) and impair visibility (Valente et al 2007). The World Health Organization (WHO), aware of the health effects of smoke from wildfires, provides air quality guidelines for wildfire events to protect the population (WHO 1999), particularly in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) owing to the high risk of human exposure (Miranda et al 2008;Ager et al 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The populations most vulnerable to smoke exposure are the common risk groups (e.g. children and older adults) (Rappold et al 2017;Aguilera et al 2021) and personnel involved in firefighting operations (Miranda et al 2010(Miranda et al , 2012Sebastião et al 2019). Short-term exposure to very high air pollution levels during a fire event can lead to acute health problems, which can be instantaneous irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, and shortness of breath.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of the wildfires in August 2021 on the air quality of Athens through a numerical simulation

Osswald,

Gama,

Fernandes

et al. 2023

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Background Air quality deteriorates significantly during wildfire events, which poses a risk for the health of affected human populations. The Mediterranean Basin was strongly impacted by wildfires during the 2021 fire season, particularly in Greece. Aims This work aims at estimating the impact of the Greek wildfires of August 2021 on the air quality in Athens. Methods The numerical modelling system WRF-APIFLAME-CHIMERE, which comprises a meteorological model, a smoke emissions model and a chemical transport model, was employed in estimating the hourly three-dimensional distribution of particulate matter (PM), CO and O3 concentrations during the wildfires. The performance of the modelling system was evaluated by comparing modelled results with air quality observations and atmospheric optical depth measurements. Key results Good agreement between measured data and model results was found, with results obtained with a higher-resolution computational grid performing the best. Conclusions The calculated values indicate concerning hourly and daily levels of air pollution, above the limit values for human health protection, during the analysed days within and around Athens. Implications The results highlight the importance of implementing a strategy for human health protection during wildfire events affecting populated areas. This modelling approach could be a basis for a smoke forecasting system.

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Smoke exposure levels prediction following laboratory combustion of Pinus koraiensis plantation surface fuel

Ning

Yang

Zhang

et al. 2023

Science of The Total Environment

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Detecting changes in the heart rate of firefighters to prevent smoke inhalation and health effects

Cited by 4 publications

References 28 publications

Classification of Critical Levels of CO Exposure of Firefigthers through Monitored Heart Rate

Classification of Critical Levels of CO Exposure of Firefigthers through Monitored Heart Rate

Effects of the wildfires in August 2021 on the air quality of Athens through a numerical simulation

Smoke exposure levels prediction following laboratory combustion of Pinus koraiensis plantation surface fuel

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