Where There’s Smoke, There May Be Health Risks

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Where there are wildfires, there’s smoke. And where there is climate change, there may be more—and more intense—wildfires. What does that mean for the health of the people downwind from the smoke?

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Michigan Technological University and the University of Maryland just received nearly half a million dollars in federal stimulus funds from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to try to find out. Nancy French, a senior research scientist at the Michigan Tech Research Institute and an expert in fire emissions, is the principal investigator.

Her co-investigators include a plume dispersion specialist who studies the way the direction and speed of the wind affects where smoke goes, a spatial statistician who develops programs that enable researchers to visualize their data over space and time, and a future fire risk assessment specialist. 

They will work with data collected by the San Diego County Health Department and remote air-quality sensors during the wildfires of 2003 and 2007. They hope to analyze the emissions from those fires, determine what kinds of particles fell where and in what amounts, and assess the impact on respiratory disorders and other medical conditions.

They plan to compare the effects that different climate-change scenarios could have on the frequency and intensity of wildfires and thus on human health.

For more information, contact Nancy French, .

Source:  Michigan Technological University

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