wildfire smoke

The Healthy Lungs for Heroes Act was introduced by Democratic California Senator Adam Schiff and Republican Utah Senator John Curtis. If passed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal officials would have one year to develop a plan to make “commercially available appropriate respiratory personal protective equipment for wildland firefighters and supporting staff in settings in which smoke exposure surpasses covered permissible exposure limits.”

The tragic Los Angeles fires were a historically destructive disaster, but they also presented a unique opportunity to study the toxic exposures faced by firefighters. New findings point to a heightened risk for serious diseases like lupus.

New research shows that wildfires are a major contributor to ozone pollution, and can significantly exceed the impacts of human-generated emissions.

In recent months, concern about the health risks wildland firefighters face has been growing. Now a major conference exploring that issue has started in Colorado.

The federal government has issued new guidelines to wildland firefighters for the voluntary use of protective masks. The move comes as knowledge of long-term health risks faced by such workers – including cancer – grows.

Prescribed burns are widely recognized as an effective wildfire mitigation tool. Now, using satellite imagery, land management records and fire emissions data, a team of researchers has put hard numbers to those impacts.

More than 200 people are working from the air and on the ground to suppress the fire despite erratic winds.

Federal forecasters say there is above-average potential for significant wildfires all the way through the end of September across a vast swath of the Western U.S.

Most of the states in our region have at least one county that violates the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Ambient Air Quality Standard.

Much of southern Arizona and New Mexico are expected to see above average potential for wildfire in April.