In a new Bloomberg article, Emma Court spoke with members of the LA Fire HEALTH Study team at UCLA about their work to investigate what kind of toxins are present after a wildfire.

“‘What are we facing? What are we exposed to? Is it safe?’ We hear these questions all the time,” said Yifang Zhu, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles’s public health school who’s been measuring pollution related to the fires since early this year. “This knowledge and new insights will be very helpful for the future.”
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It’s an unprecedented research effort that’s unfolding in real time and made more challenging by pre-existing environmental contamination — some of the contaminants might have come from sources other than the fire. But it’s a pressing task as wildfires increasingly spill into communities, fueled by hotter and drier conditions induced by climate change.

Some of the scientists studying the public health implications of the LA fires have called for better monitoring of those affected. The LA Fire HEALTH Study, a research team that includes Zhu and Jerrett, is tracking 50 affected homes and their occupants, a costly effort that involves taking measurements at the residences and collecting blood, hair, nail and urine samples from the residents over time. The hope is that work will help reduce how much damage is done by future fires.

Read the full article on Bloomberg here.