Topic: Smoke and Air Quality

Wildfire activity has increased in the USA and is projected to accelerate under future climate change^1,2,…

Background

Exposure to PM_2·5 from wildfire smoke during pregnancy has been implicated as a risk factor for preterm birth. We investigated this association in the prospective nationwide US Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort, focusing on prenatal…

Background

The impact of short‐term exposure to fine particulate matter with a diameter ≤2.5 μm (PM_2.5) due to wildland fire smoke on the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains unclear. We investigated the association between short‐term exposure to…

Smoke from extreme wildfires in Canada adversely affected air quality in many regions in 2023^1,2. Here we use…

Pathways to achieving net-zero and net-negative greenhouse-gas (GHG) emission targets rely on land-based contributions to carbon (C) sequestration. However, projections of future contributions neglect to consider ecosystems, climate change, legacy impacts of continental-scale fire exclusion,…

Background. Wildfire smoke events are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change. Children are especially vulnerable to health effects even at moderate smoke levels. However, it is unclear how parents respond to Air Quality Indices (AQIs) frequently used by agencies to…

Smoke from the Los Angeles (LA) wildfires that started on January 7, 2025 caused severe air quality impacts across the region. Government agencies released guidance on assessing personal risk, pointing to publicly available data platforms that present information from monitoring networks and…

Wildfires in the western US increasingly threaten infrastructure, air quality, and public health. Prescribed (“Rx”) fire is often proposed to mitigate future wildfires, but treatments remain limited, and few studies quantify their effectiveness on recent major wildfires. We investigate the…

RATIONALE Wildfires have increased in frequency and intensity due to climate change and now contribute to nearly half of the annual average of fine particulate matter in the US. While the effects of short-term wildfire-PM_2.5 exposure on respiratory diseases are well-described, the…

Climate change has increased forest fire extent in temperate and boreal North America. Here, we quantified the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to human mortality and economic burden from exposure to wildfire particulate matter at the county and state level across the contiguous US (…