The Los Angeles-area wildfires in early January 2025 killed 29 people, destroyed more than 16,000 structures, and exposed millions to toxic smoke.
In an unprecedented collective scientific effort to understand the short- and long-term health impacts of wildfires, researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, University of California at Davis, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Keck School of Medicine of USC have launched a 10-year study of LA fires.
The Los Angeles Fire Human Exposure and Long-Term Health Study (L.A. Fire HEALTH Study) is being launched with the support of a visionary gift from the Spiegel Family Fund. The multi-institutional collaboration is a consortium led by researchers from many institutions with expertise in environmental exposure assessment, analysis of health outcomes, wildfire risk assessment and management, and data science.
The research aims to evaluate which pollutants are present, at what levels and where, as the concentrations diminish over time, and to assess the health impacts of the wildfire emissions.
Study Goals
The primary goal of the study is to get answers to the key questions in the community:
Is it safe?
Which pollutants are present, at what levels, where, and how they change over time?
What are the health impacts?
Are the L.A. fires and aftermath are associated with short-term and chronic health issues?
Consortium Members
The multi-institutional collaboration is a consortium led by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Keck School of Medicine of USC, Stanford University, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, the University of California at Davis, and the University of Texas at Austin, with expertise in environmental exposure assessment, health outcomes, wildfire risk assessment and management, and data science.
Sponsors
The Study is being funded over ten years by gifts from private philanthropists, including the Speigel Family Fund.
The Spiegel Family Fund was founded by Evan Spiegel, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Snap, Inc. He grew up in Pacific Palisades, a town devastated by the recent fires, and still lives in Los Angeles with his family. In an emotional love letter to the city as the fires raged, he wrote: “We are not the first community to face a megafire. We will not be the last. But we will use our strength, our ingenuity, and our love to create again and anew.”
By funding the research study, Spiegel said he hoped to help spur that recovery and learn critical insights that could protect health and well-being both in Los Angeles and in other cities affected by wildfires in the future.
If you are interested in supporting this work, please email donate@lafirehealth.org to learn more.
Community Partners
The study is partnering with multiple agencies in the local community, including:
Study research activities are focused on these 10 key areas:
What was/is released and where?
1. Modeling Fuel Load and Fire Emissions
- We are modeling exposures from fire emissions based on the distribution of different fuel stocks in urban and woodland areas.
2. Smoke Composition in Air and Ash
- We are characterizing the composition of smoke residues and settled ash in communities downwind.
3. Mobile Measurements
- We are using mobile monitoring equipment to characterize chemical contaminants in air using high-quality real time instruments across affected communities.
4. Surface water flow and soil impacts
- We are mapping the transport of fire debris in surface water and the impacts on soil.
What are the exposures?
5. Firefighter Exposures
- We are monitoring exposures to professional and resident firefighters.
6. Indoor Environments – Home Studies
- We are measuring air/water/dust/soil in homes in and around burn zones.
7. Real-Time Air Quality Tracking
- We are measuring real-time indoor air quality monitors at local locations across the area.
8. Indoor Environments – Residential Infiltration
- We are analyzing filters from commercial buildings to understand building impacts and infiltration.
9. Indoor Environments – Commercial Buildings
- Measuring and monitoring effectiveness of air filtration systems in commercial buildings.
Communications and Data Sharing
10. Transparency, Community Engagement, and Collaboration
- We are assembling Community Advisory Boards in Altadena and Palisades to facilitate open communication between the research team and the community. This will ground our research aims in community concerns and ensure our findings are clear and meaningful to the affected residents.