New study informs fire prevention strategies to save lives and property

U.S. National Science Foundation-supported research shows that fires in populated areas are three times more likely to lead to premature deaths than wildfires overall, informing fire mitigation efforts.

Scientists at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) led the study, published in Science Advances, which found that smoke from fires that blaze through the wildland-urban interface (WUI) has far greater health impacts than smoke from wildfires in remote areas.

"This research will support the development of advanced fire prevention strategies, improve building codes and lead to effective emergency response plans,” said Bernard Grant, a program director in the NSF Directorate for Geosciences. “It will help protect lives and homes, safeguard natural ecosystems and reduce the economic burden of wildfire disasters,”

The researchers used an advanced NSF NCAR-based computer model, the Multi-Scale Infrastructure for Chemistry and Aerosols, to simulate pollutants from fires. Their modeling included carbon monoxide chemical tracers, which allowed them to estimate emission sources and differentiate between wildland and WUI fires.

"The health impacts are proportionately large because they're close to human populations," said NSF NCAR scientist Wenfu Tang, the report's lead author. "Pollutants emitted by WUI fires, such as particulate matter and the precursors to ozone, are more harmful because they’re not dispersing across hundreds or thousands of miles."