Fires that burn where human development meets wild landscapes, known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI), pose a greater threat to air quality and public health than previously understood. A new Science Advances study uses satellite fire detections and an advanced atmospheric model to assess, for the first time, the global air quality and health impacts of WUI fires. The researchers found that although WUI fires make up a small fraction of total fire emissions, they are responsible for a much larger share of smoke-related premature deaths. Because these fires burn closer to populated areas, pollutants like fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone reach more people, leading to greater health risks than fires in more remote wildlands.
This study was led by Wenfu Tang of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, with support from the Climate Program Office’s Atmospheric Chemistry, Carbon Cycle and Climate (AC4) program through a grant aimed at understanding WUI fire emissions and impacts using global-scale models and satellite data. Tang worked with an international group of scientists, including researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory (CSL). The team provides a global scale analysis of WUI fire impacts, filling a critical knowledge gap. Their findings offer an important foundation for improving fire emission inventories and highlight the need to better account for structure and vehicle burning in WUI fire assessments.
For more information, contact Clara Deck.
