California’s most destructive wildfires in recent history have occurred in the last 20 years. The severity and frequency of wildfires in the western U.S. have been increasing over the past decade and are becoming more difficult to contain. Public health concerns are also increasing over wildfires that reach the wildland-urban-interface (WUI; zone of transition between unoccupied/undeveloped land and human development) where human-made objects are engulfed and burned, releasing diverse and mostly uncharacterized levels of air toxics and reactive chemicals into the atmosphere. Wildfire smoke is often transported to local and regional population centers, affecting the surface-level air quality while worsening air pollution exposures to air pollutants and complicating the atmospheric formation of health-affecting air pollutants like ozone and secondary organic aerosols. The scale of these effects is still not fully understood. This research project will provide comparative assessment of the air quality of smoke from wildfires and prescribed fires used for land management purposes. The measurement campaigns conducted during wildfires and prescribed burns require specialized mobile monitoring that is equipped with state-of-the-science research-grade instruments and regulatory-grade air quality monitors and other portable instruments. Overall, the results will provide the science-based recommendations to guide and inform regional strategies on actions needed to improve the community fire resilience plans.
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