Increasingly intense wildfires that have scorched forests from California to Australia are stoking worry about long-term health impacts from smoke exposure in affected cities and towns.
Wildfires such as the ones that have been burning across Australia for months, pose different threats to the firefighters battling them. And, because the safety equipment used by woodland firefighters is far less regulated than that of their counterparts who fight fires in buildings and other structures, the long-term effects of these threats are still largely unknown, say two assistant bioengineering professors at Northeastern.
Jessica Oakes and Chiara Bellini are studying the health consequences of smoke inhalation on woodland firefighters—research that is funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The deadly bushfires that have torched more than 15 acres of land in Australia and claimed the lives of 28 people and close to a billion animals are exactly the types of fires Oakes and Bellini are studying.
The emergency personnel who fight such wildfires typically work 12-hour shifts and are exposed to dangerous smoke conditions for a much longer period of time than firefighters who battle structural fires, Bellini says. Much of their job is also cleaning up wildland that may not be actively burning, but is still smoldering, Oakes says.
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