Fighting fire with data: research-informed policy changes to mitigate health effects from wildfire smoke emissions through in-situ sampling, real-time predictions, and field studies

Team: Matthias Ihme, Kari Nadeau, Mary Prunicki, Matthias Kling, Thomas Wolf, Andy Aquila

The severity and frequency of large wildfires have increased significantly over the past two decades. While the loss of lives, property damage, and increased burn areas from wildfires are of immediate consequence, long-term effects on health from pollutants and smoke emissions are of equal importance. Yet, the effect of the pollutants, smoke residue, and other toxic compounds that are emitted from wildfires have not been considered in regulatory and legislative planning. The objective of this project is to initiate research informed policy changes that are accelerated through the employment of discriminative sampling techniques and real-time prediction tools and novel data-analysis. To this end, we will advance, integrate, and demonstrate complementary analysis techniques in conjunction with field studies.