A new article in the March 28 issue of Science magazine, highlights the work of the LA Fire HEALTH study to fill in important gaps in knowledge about the health impacts of wildfires. Especially as fires in the “wildland-urban-interface” areas increase in frequency.
Because of the nature of urban fires, burning cars and structures, in addition to vegetation, there are different concerns about the type of fumes that residents and firefighters may have been exposed to.
“These fires give us entirely new sets of toxic contaminants,” says David Allen, a chemical engineer at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin who chaired the National Academies committee and is part of the team that dispatched the van to Altadena. Residents in the affected areas, he notes, want to know whether it’s safe to return to houses that are still standing. “We have very little scientific knowledge that we can use to direct guidance.”
The article follows the work of researchers in field in Altadena, collecting water, ash, and soil samples for later testing, and measuring air quality both inside and outside of homes.
“It’s a big team,” proclaimed Yifang Zhu, an air pollution expert at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as she stood in the driveway one day in February. “It’s great that everyone came.”