The Chemistry of Fires at the Wildland-Urban Interface (2022) / Chapter Skim
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WUI fires may also lead to higher human exposures than wildland fires because of their proximity to communities, and because individuals whose occupations bring them in proximity to wildland fires are increasingly being exposed to WUI-type fires. While WUI fires lead to emissions that are different than for wildland and urban fires, the precise nature and extent of those differences is not well understood.
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While few data are available on emissions and exposures from fires at the WUI, knowledge of the chemistry, emissions, exposures, and health impacts of wildland fires and urban fires can be combined to hypothesize characteristics of WUI fires. Throughout the report, the committee examines what is known of wildland fires and urban fires and uses that information to identify potential emissions, exposures, and health impacts of WUI fires.
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HUMAN EXPOSURES, HEALTH IMPACTS, AND MITIGATION The identification of chemicals of concern for human exposure, environmental justice and vulnerable populations, and health impacts from WUI fire emissions is affected by the data limitations described above. The committee assessed potential exposures at multiple scales, from the immediate fire zone, where emergency responders such as firefighters experience direct exposure to heat and high concentrations of fire emissions, to the regional and continental levels, where WUI fire smoke can have an extended impact.
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As in other problem areas that seek to estimate the emissions, exposures, and health impacts associated with WUI fires, there is limited information on human exposures that is specific to WUI fires. MEASUREMENT SCIENCE Throughout the report, the committee outlined the diverse data needs associated with understanding the chemistry of WUI fires and their emissions, which range from collecting data on fuel characteristics of heterogeneous structures, to measuring the concentrations, exposures, and health impacts of large numbers of toxicants, many of which will be present at trace levels.
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Recommendation 1: To understand the chemistry, exposures, and health impacts of toxicants resulting from WUI fires, researchers and agencies that fund research should implement an integrated, multi disciplinary research agenda. Agencies funding, and investigators performing, research on WUI fire emissions should coordinate their research plans, and they should create widely accessible repositories for data and information relevant to WUI fires.
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Research on emissions from WUI fires can build on the extensive knowledge base developed for wildland fires, but understanding the impacts of combustion of mixed wildland and urban fuels will require new information on fuels, emissions, transport and transformations, and health impacts of toxicant exposures. Making connections between research areas from emissions to exposure and health impacts will continue to be a challenge.
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Policy-relevant research findings and actionable messaging could include recommendations for building materials to be used in WUI communities, strategies for reducing interior environment fire risks, public information regarding the effectiveness of measures to mitigate exposures, and community mappings of toxicant precursors, accessible to decision-makers. More than 40 million homes in the United States are located at the WUI.
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