Rosenberg Andrew, Hoshiko Sumi, Buckman Joseph R, Yeomans Kirstin R, Hayashi Thomas, Kramer Samantha J, Huang ShihMing, French Nancy H F, Rappold Ana G
Environmental Health Investigations Branch, California Department of Public Health, Richmond, CA, USA.
California Epidemiologic Investigation Service Fellowship Program (Cal-EIS), Chronic Disease Control Branch, Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, California Department of Public Health, Sacramento, CA, USA.
Earths Future. 2024 Feb 7;12(2):e2023EF003778. doi: 10.1029/2023EF003778.
In response to increasing wildfire risks, California plans to expand the use of prescribed fire. We characterized the anticipated change in health impacts from exposure to smoke under a future fire-management scenario relative to a historical period (2008-2016). Using dispersion models, we estimated daily fine particulate matter (PM) emissions from hypothetical future prescribed fires on 500,000-acres classified as high priority. To evaluate health impacts, we calculated excess daily cardiorespiratory emergency department visit rates attributed to all-source PM, distinguishing the portion of the burden attributed to prescribed fire. The total burden was differentiated by fire type and by smoke strata-specific days to calculate strata-specific burden rates, which were then applied to estimate the burden in the future scenario. This analysis suggests that the exposure to prescribed fire smoke, measured as the number of persons exposed per year, would be 15 times greater in the future. However, these exposures were associated with lower concentrations compared to the historical period. The increased number of exposure days led to an overall increase in the future health burden. Specifically, the northern, central, and southern regions experienced the largest burden increase. This study introduces an approach that integrates spatiotemporal exposure differences, baseline morbidity, and population size to assess the impacts of prescribed fire under a future scenario. The findings highlight the need to consider both the level and frequency of exposure to guide strategies to safeguard public health as well as aid forest management agencies in making informed decisions to protect communities while mitigating wildfire risks.
为应对日益增加的野火风险，加利福尼亚州计划扩大计划性火烧的使用范围。我们描述了相对于历史时期（2008 - 2016年），在未来火灾管理情景下暴露于烟雾中对健康影响的预期变化。利用扩散模型，我们估算了50万英亩被列为高优先级的假设性未来计划性火烧产生的每日细颗粒物（PM）排放量。为评估健康影响，我们计算了归因于所有来源PM的每日额外心肺急诊就诊率，区分出归因于计划性火烧的负担部分。总负担按火灾类型和特定烟雾层天数进行区分，以计算特定层负担率，然后应用这些率来估计未来情景下的负担。该分析表明，以每年暴露人数衡量，未来暴露于计划性火烧烟雾中的人数将增加15倍。然而，与历史时期相比，这些暴露所涉及的浓度较低。暴露天数的增加导致未来健康负担总体上升。具体而言，北部、中部和南部地区的负担增加最为显著。本研究介绍了一种整合时空暴露差异、基线发病率和人口规模的方法，以评估未来情景下计划性火烧的影响。研究结果凸显了需要同时考虑暴露水平和频率，以指导保障公众健康的策略，并帮助森林管理机构在减轻野火风险的同时做出明智决策来保护社区。
