Using National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter to assess regional wildland fire smoke and air quality management

Schweizer, Don; Cisneros, Ricardo; Traina, Samuel J.; Ghezzehei, Teamrat A.; Shaw, Glenn D.

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.07.004

Cited by 32 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Fire is a feature of the landscape that we cannot remove [3,19,44], therefore we have to learn to live with fire and its associated air pollution impacts. We can, however, aim to decrease population health harms.…”

Section: Strategies To Reduce Smoke Exposure and Associated Health Immentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfire smoke exposure under climate change

Reid¹,

Maestas

2019

Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine

107

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Purpose of review-In this review, we describe the current status of the literature regarding respiratory health related to wildfire smoke exposure, anticipated future impacts under a changing climate, and strategies to reduce respiratory health impacts of wildfire smoke. Recent Findings-Recent findings confirm associations between wildfire smoke exposure and respiratory health outcomes, with the clearest evidence for exacerbations of asthma. Although previous evidence showed a clear association between wildfire smoke and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, findings from recent studies are more mixed. Current evidence in support of an association between respiratory infections and wildfire smoke exposure is also mixed. The only study to investigate long-term respiratory health impacts of wildfire smoke demonstrated decreases in lung function ten years after exposure though this finding was only in males who were young adults during the 1997 Indonesian fires. Few studies have estimated future health impacts of wildfires under likely climate change scenarios. Summary-Wildfire activity has been increasing over the past several decades and is likely to continue to do so as climate change progresses, which, combined with a growing population, means that population exposure to and respiratory health impacts of wildfire smoke is likely to grow in the future. More research is needed to understand which population subgroups are most vulnerable to wildfire smoke exposure and the long-term respiratory health impacts of these high pollution events.

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Section: Strategies To Reduce Smoke Exposure and Associated Health Immentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfire smoke exposure under climate change

Reid¹,

Maestas

2019

Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine

107

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“…Monday and Friday are intermediate. Although this weekly cycle might be expected from labor customs, the NEI of air pollutants does not account for it (Text S3 and Figure S5; EPA, 2015aEPA, , 2015bEPA, , 2016EPA, , 2017EPA, , 2018 nor do past regional studies mention it (Larkin et al, 2014;Park et al, 2007;Schichtel et al, 2017;Schweizer et al, 2017;Zeng et al, 2008). Moreover, the day-of-week effect seen here for prescribed fires in Florida is much stronger than what NEI specifies for emissions in any state (see Text S3 and Figure S5; EPA, 2015aEPA, , 2015bEPA, , 2016EPA, , 2017EPA, , 2018.…”

Section: Current Status Of Prescribed Fires Wildfires and Their Dromentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Picture of Fire Extent, Variability, and Drought Interaction in Prescribed Fire Landscapes: Insights From Florida Government Records

Nowell

Holmes

Robertson

et al. 2018

Geophysical Research Letters

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Florida, United States, government records provide a new resource for studying fire in landscapes managed with prescribed fire. In Florida, most fire area (92%) is prescribed. Current satellite fire products, which underpin most air pollution emission inventories, detect only 25% of burned area, which alters airborne emissions and environmental impacts. Moreover, these satellite products can misdiagnose spatiotemporal variability of fires. Overall fire area in Florida decreases during drought conditions as prescribed fires are avoided, but satellite data do not reflect this pattern. This pattern is consistent with prescribed fire successfully reducing overall fire risk and damages. Human management of prescribed fires and fuels can, therefore, break the conventional link between drought and wildfire and play an important role in mitigating rising fire risk in a changing climate. These results likely apply in other regions of the world with similar fire regimes.

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“…Historically, in the Western US, frequent fires of low severity burned on the forest floor and resulted in coniferous forests that are more vulnerable to the effects of fire [4]. In California, ecological health, but this relation is confounded by smoke exposure [27]. Understanding relative risk from fire management actions is essential to informed protection of public health.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Community Smoke Exposure from Wildfire Compared to Prescribed Fire in the United States

et al. 2018

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Prescribed fire, intentionally ignited low-intensity fires, and managed wildfires-wildfires that are allowed to burn for land management benefit-could be used as a land management tool to create forests that are resilient to wildland fire. This could lead to fewer large catastrophic wildfires in the future. However, we must consider the public health impacts of the smoke that is emitted from wildland and prescribed fire. The objective of this synthesis is to examine the differences in ambient community-level exposures to particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) from smoke in the United States in relation to two smoke exposure scenarios-wildfire fire and prescribed fire. A systematic search was conducted to identify scientific papers to be included in this review. The Web of Science Core Collection and PubMed, for scientific papers, and Google Scholar were used to identify any grey literature or reports to be included in this review. Sixteen studies that examined particulate matter exposure from smoke were identified for this synthesis-nine wildland fire studies and seven prescribed fire studies. PM 2.5 concentrations from wildfire smoke were found to be significantly lower than reported PM 2.5 concentrations from prescribed fire smoke. Wildfire studies focused on assessing air quality impacts to communities that were nearby fires and urban centers that were far from wildfires. However, the prescribed fire studies used air monitoring methods that focused on characterizing exposures and emissions directly from, and next to, the burns. This review highlights a need for a better understanding of wildfire smoke impact over the landscape. It is essential for properly assessing population exposure to smoke from different fire types.

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Using National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter to assess regional wildland fire smoke and air quality management

Cited by 32 publications

References 32 publications

Wildfire smoke exposure under climate change

Wildfire smoke exposure under climate change

A New Picture of Fire Extent, Variability, and Drought Interaction in Prescribed Fire Landscapes: Insights From Florida Government Records

A Review of Community Smoke Exposure from Wildfire Compared to Prescribed Fire in the United States

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