Research Database
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Assessing relative differences in smoke exposure from prescribed, managed, and full suppression wildland fire
Year: 2019
A novel approach is presented to analyze smoke exposure and provide a metric to quantify health-related impacts. Our results support the current understanding that managing low-intensity fire for ecological benefit reduces exposure when compared to a high-intensity full suppression fire in the Sierra Nevada of California. More frequent use of fire provides an opportunity to mitigate smoke exposure for both individual events and future emission scenarios. The differences in relative exposure between high-intensity, low-intensity, and prescribed burn were significant (P value < 0.01).…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildland firefighter smoke exposure and risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality
Year: 2019
Wildland firefighters are exposed to wood smoke, which contains hazardous air pollutants, by suppressing thousands of wildfires across the U. S. each year. We estimated the relative risk of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality from existing PM2.5 exposure-response relationships using measured PM4 concentrations from smoke and breathing rates from wildland firefighter field studies across different exposure scenarios. To estimate the relative risk of lung cancer (LC) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality from exposure to PM2.5 from smoke, we used an existing exposure-response…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Air-quality challenges of prescribed fire in the complex terrain and wildland urban interface surrounding Bend, Oregon
Year: 2019
Prescribed fires in forest ecosystems can negatively impact human health and safety by transporting smoke downwind into nearby communities. Smoke transport to communities is known to occur around Bend, Oregon, United States of America (USA), where burning at the wildland–urban interface in the Deschutes National Forest resulted in smoke intrusions into populated areas. The number of suitable days for prescribed fires is limited due to the necessity for moderate weather conditions, as well as wind directions that do not carry smoke into Bend. To better understand the conditions leading to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Social Vulnerability and Wildfire in the Wildland-Urban Interface - Annotated Bibliography
Year: 2019
Publication Type: Report
Social Vulnerability and Wildfire in the Wildland-Urban Interface
Year: 2019
People living in the Pacific Northwest confrontrisks associated with environmentalhazards such as wildfire. Vulnerability towildfire hazard is commonly recognized as beingspatially distributed according to geographic conditionsthat collectively determine the probabilityof exposure. For example, exposure to wildfirehazard is higher for people living in rural, forestedsettings than in a strictly urban neighborhood becauserural housing is built in close proximity tothe threat source, e.g., flammable landscapes suchas forests and chaparral. Yet, even if levels of exposureare held constant, not…
Publication Type: Report
Social Vulnerability and Wildfire in the Wildland-Urban Interface: Literature synthesis
Year: 2019
The overall objective of this paper is to clarify areas of debate, clearly define and contrast disparate approaches, and synthesize findings that may help address vulnerability to wildfires and other natural hazards. While land managers and fire personnel might find it pertinent to approach biophysical and social issues separately, addressing both aspects of wildfire hazard can be productive for minimizing risk and empowering communities, neighborhoods, and households to prepare and recover from wildfire events. We aim to provide a practical grasp of social vulnerability research as it…
Publication Type: Report