Kevin Cromar on Health Impacts from Wildland Fires

Director of Air Quality, Kevin Cromar, is co-author of a new report that calls for a more coordinated federal response to the health impacts from wildland fires in the United States. The report is the culmination of a workshop that Cromar helped organize that focused on four main areas: the science of wildland-fire incidence and fire management, respiratory and cardiovascular health effects of wildland-fire smoke exposure, communication strategies to address these health risks, and actions to address wildland-fire health impacts. The expert panel that participated in the workshop and produced the report included health experts, public health officials, and wildland-fire managers from local and federal agencies. Recommendations to better address health risks from wildland fires include: investment in fire-behavior and smoke air quality modeling, additional research on the health impacts of smoke, and robust clinical and public health communication tools that can be deployed locally. The workshop was funded by U.S. EPA and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, with additional support from the Department of the Interior. Cromar and his colleagues will continue collaborating on this issue to secure legislative and agency support for the recommendations in the report.

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