Fields and Forests in Flames: Vegetation Smoke and Human Health

Abstract

People have lived for tens of thousands of years in the presence of smoke from fires. That long period of adaptation tends to allow healthy younger adults in today’s environments to be generally resistant to serious adverse health effects from smoke from sources such as wildfires, prescribed forest burns, agricultural field burns, and peat bog fires, says Wayne Cascio, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Public Health Division. But a high percentage of people aren’t young, healthy adults. In the United States, nearly half the population suffers from at least one chronic illness,1 potentially placing them at risk for adverse effects from exposure to fire smoke. Children and older adults also are considered more vulnerable to smoke’s effects.2 The limited health research that’s been done on smoke from large-scale fires has provided some refinements to these general categories of vulnerable people, and new information occasionally emerges. There also has been a trickle of information identifying the toxic substances that characterize smoke from various kinds of fires, and pinning down the specific body systems that are vulnerable and the pathways through which damage occurs. But much remains unknown about the varying toxicity of emissions from different types of vegetation fires and the vulnerability of specific groups of people, although a good deal of research has examined the adverse health effects of smoke related to heating and cooking with wood.3 Filling these voids is essential, Cascio says. “It is critically important to define who is at highest risk so that individual and community-based intervention strategies can be developed to specifically mitigate the health risks associated with smoke exposure,” he says. “The goal, of course, is to provide education or intervention to the most sensitive individuals in the most cost-effective way without needlessly worrying or interfering with the daily activities of [others].” Such information can also help organizations and individuals who deal with fire threats as they work to integrate health concerns with many other factors, such as land management practices and programs, cultural mores, political influences, and funding.