TITLE:
Health and Environmental Impacts of Smoke from Vegetation Fires: A Review
AUTHORS:
Zifei Liu, James Pat Murphy, Ronaldo Maghirang, Daniel Devlin
KEYWORDS:
Emission, Exposure, Epidemiology, Prescribed Burning, Particulate Matter, Air Pollution
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.7 No.12,
November
25,
2016
ABSTRACT: Smoke exposure is often an
inevitable side effect of open vegetation fires (both planned and wild) and is
an important public health concern. The objective of this paper is to summarize
state-of-the-art knowledge on health and environmental impacts of smoke from
vegetation fires, to identify research gaps, and to provide needed information
to researchers, land managers, policymakers, health care workers, and the general
public. The main components of vegetation fire smoke and their
characterizations are identified and evaluated. Concentrations, emission
ratios, and emission factors of smoke components and the combined health and
environmental effects of all hazardous smoke components from vegetation fire
smoke exposure are summarized. Trends in risk assessment of vegetation fire
smoke, limitations of current research, and future research needs are
discussed.