Research carried out by scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) in 2017 concluded that summer wildfires increase air pollution considerably more than previously believed.
Wood burned in fires releases what we know as fine particles or suspended particles into the air, smaller than coarse particles and passing into the air at a speed three times faster than the levels observed in the emission inventories of the Agency of United States Environmental Protection. The microscopic particles that make up aerosols are a danger to human health, particularly to the lungs and heart.
Detrimental effects of fire
“Biomass burning produces a lot of pollution, which is really bad for breathing from a health point of view,” says Greg Huey, leader of the work published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. And it is that the particles, some of which contain oxidants that cause genetic damage , are in the resulting aerosols and can travel long distances to populated areas.
As if this were not enough, the study brings to the table the presence of other chemicals in wildfire smoke, many that have never been detected , and raises the estimated annual emissions of particles significantly.
Previous data from the Environmental Protection Agency had been based on samples taken from controlled fires started by forestry professionals. Measuring pollution from the sky, directly in the middle of a forest fire, had not been possible until that moment.
The great fire of 2013
To reach these conclusions, several fact-finding missions plunged into the plumes of three major wildfires, including ‘ Rim Fire’, the blaze that started on August 17, 2013 and became the third largest fire in history. from California (USA) The researchers, in collaboration with planes from NASA and the US Department of Energy, were able to measure chemicals and smoke particles from fires in real time.
“We actually went to measure, right above the fire, everything that was coming out,” says Huey.
In total, more than a dozen universities and organizations participated in the data collection or analysis. “This document is expected to serve as the basis for NASA’s upcoming chemical fire monitoring mission,” Huey said.
So far this century, 2.2 million hectares have been burned in Spain, and many of the great fires that ravage our country every summer are intentional or the result of negligence in human activity. Although great efforts are being made to reinforce firefighting operations, more vigilance and above all more prevention are necessary to avoid these disasters, as a WWF report points out.
Referencia: Airborne measurements of western U.S. wildfire emissions: Comparison with prescribed burning and air quality implications. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. Junio 2017. DOI: 10.1002/2016JD026315
Image credit: Kari Greer/USFS Gila National Forest via NASA
