Wildland firefighters are exposed to wood smoke, which contains hazardous air pollutants, by suppressing thousands of wildfires across the U. S. each year.
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.
The NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire contains information on prescribed fire smoke management techniques, air quality regulations, smoke monitoring, modeling, communication, public perception of prescribed fire and smoke, climate change, practical meteorological approaches and smoke tools.
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.
The natural cycle of landscape fire maintains the ecological health of the land, yet adverse health effects associated with exposure to emissions from wildfire produce public health and clinical challenges. Systematic reviews conclude that a positive association exists between exposure to wildfire smoke or wildfire particulate matter (PM2.5) and all-cause mortality and respiratory morbidity.
Wildfire episodes pose a significant public health threat in the United States. Adverse health impacts associated with wildfires occur near the burn area as well as in places far downwind due to wildfire smoke exposures.
Wildfires have significant effects on human populations worldwide. Smoke pollution, in particular, from either prescribed burns or uncontrolled wildfires, can have profound health impacts, such as reducing birth weight in children and aggravating respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.
Past and current forest management affects wildland fire smoke impacts on downwind human populations. However, mismatches between the scale of benefits and risks make it difficult to proactively manage wildland fires to promote both ecological and public health.
Wildfires burn over 7 million US acres annually, according to the US Forest Service. Little is known regarding which subpopulations are more vulnerable to health risks from wildfire smoke, including fine particles.
Exposure to smoke emitted from wildfire and planned burns (i.e., smoke events) has been associated with numerous negative health outcomes, including respiratory symptoms and conditions. This rapid review investigates recent evidence (post-2009) regarding the effectiveness of public health messaging during smoke events.