Bottom Line: Wildfires are a significant source of air pollution - primarily of PM_2.5 - and their air quality-related health impacts present a significant public health challenge. As the effects of climate change are realized, it is likely that wildfires will increase in frequency and severity.

Research: We explore how wildfire emissions affect air quality and health leveraging earth-system modeling, remote sensing, and adjoint sensitivity methods. We quantify the sensitivity of pollution exposures in individual cities and countries and combine these with biomass burning emissions to estimate how wildfires effect air quality; we then leverage health impact assessment methods to quantify the health implications of wildfire smoke.

In the above figure, we calculate the premature deaths attributed by fires in 2019 (a) and take the difference relative to contributions in 2016 (b), to quantify how fires in different areas impact PM_2.5-related health impacts in Brazil. We also present the total biomass burning emissions (c) and difference compared to 2016 (d) for the same region.

Nawaz, M.O. & Henze, D.K. Premature Deaths in Brazil Associated With Long-Term Exposure to PM2.5 From Amazon Fires Between 2016 and 2019. GeoHealth 2020. 10.1029/2020GH000268