Effects Of Days/Weeks Of Wildfire Smoke On Western Residents' Health Getting First Sustained Studies
EDIT
The problem is growing as the size and intensity of wildfires rise in the western United States, marinating communities in smoke. Wildfires account for more than two-thirds of the particulate matter in the West on days that exceed federal clean air standards, according to a 2016 study in the journal Climatic Change. And global warming is likely to stoke even more fire in coming years, by making wildlands more combustible. By midcentury, more than 80 million people living across much of the West can expect a 57% increase in the number of "smoke waves"—events that shroud a community for 2 days or more—according to the 2016 study. The consequences for public health could be sobering; smoke includes an array of noxious compounds and tiny particles that can complicate breathing and promote disease. Other parts of the Americas as well as Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia are likely to experience the same climate-driven surge in wildfires, according to U.S. Forest Service researchers.
Despite the potential threat, wildfire smoke has received little sustained scientific attention. The two new campaigns aim to change that. This year, the NSF-funded team that includes Fischer aims to fly its instrumented C-130 through 15 to 20 wildfire plumes. And next year, researchers with NASA and NOAA will have access to a bigger aircraft—a DC-8 jet—that will scour smoky skies across the United States.
One goal is to inventory the chemicals released by wildfires, including nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, and a vast array of volatile organic compounds. Current models for predicting the chemical makeup of smoke, which rely largely on satellite observations, have a huge margin for error, Warneke says. In part, that's because of uncertainty about how much vegetation wildfires consume. New studies that combine data from satellites, aircraft, and ground-based researchers scrutinizing burn sites should help fine-tune those estimates.
EDIT
Beyond these projects, public health researchers are taking a growing interest in what happens when smoke blankets communities, sometimes for weeks at a time. Past studies have found that short-term smoke exposure can increase problems for people with asthma and other lung ailments, but "there's really not much information at all" about the effects of long-term, chronic exposure, says Curtis Noonan, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Montana in Missoula. Noonan was at the center of some of the worst smoke of the 2017 wildfire season, when Montana was hit by fires that burned 400,000 hectares. The biggest blow fell on Seeley Lake, a town of 1600 located 50 kilometers northeast of Missoula. The nearby Rice Ridge fire filled the town with smoke for much of August and early September 2017, driving levels of fine particulate matter to nearly 20 times the acceptable limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
EDIT
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/scientists-race-reveal-how-surging-wildfire-smoke-affecting-climate-and-health