Public Health Impact of Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) from Prescribed and Wildland Fires in California
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California residents have experienced increasing frequency of catastrophic wildfires over the last decade, threatening community security, health, and safety. In recognizing this existential threat, the state of California is dramatically increasing its use of prescribed fires to as many as 1 million acres annually by 2025. We use integrated modeling approach to investigate the cardiopulmonary health burden trade-off under two fire emission scenarios, the baseline and the projected prescribed fire. The baseline scenario used historical prescribed and wildfire records from 2008-2017 to estimate emissions, while the target/projected prescribed fire scenario used CAL FIRE’s Priority Priority Landscape for Reducing Wildfire Threat to Communities to identify high priority areas for prescribe burning. Health risks and health burdens for cardiorespiratory hospitalizations and emergency department visits at the residential zip code level were estimated using a previously validated PM2.5 exposure dataset. With both emission scenarios we used a dispersion modeling approach to predict concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) based on two emission scenarios and then attribute the public health burdens from PM2.5 exposure to ambient sources, wildfires, prescribed burning, or combination of sources. Attributable health burden was further examined for differential demographic and community burdens by age, race, gender, and socioeconomic status, as well as annual average background air pollution at the ZIP code level. Results will be presented to illustrate the health burden associated with wildfires and prescribed fires and the potential burden under a future scenario of increased prescribed burning.
This abstract does not represent EPA views or policy.