Wildfires

The Healthy Lungs for Heroes Act was introduced by Democratic California Senator Adam Schiff and Republican Utah Senator John Curtis. If passed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal officials would have one year to develop a plan to make “commercially available appropriate respiratory personal protective equipment for wildland firefighters and supporting staff in settings in which smoke exposure surpasses covered permissible exposure limits.”

Data analyzed by the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters shows that prescribed fires and other hazardous fuel reduction efforts have fallen by nearly 40% across the West this year.

The tragic Los Angeles fires were a historically destructive disaster, but they also presented a unique opportunity to study the toxic exposures faced by firefighters. New findings point to a heightened risk for serious diseases like lupus.

In January, the world watched in horror as fires marched through multiple Los Angeles neighborhoods, leaving behind blocks of smoldering foundations. A recent report tried to calculate how much it would cost to rebuild the structures lost to better withstand the next blaze.

Wildfires have grown substantially in size in recent decades, but they’re also burning much more intensely, with high severity areas growing much faster than fires overall. New research projects additional significant jumps in the scale of wildfires that kill most trees unless major management measures - like prescribed fire - are carried out.

Every summer, thousands of wildland firefighters endure months of heavy exposure to smoke and other toxins without respiratory protection. As a troubling picture of the health implications emerges, policies are beginning to change.

Most Colorado homeowners do not have enough insurance coverage to rebuild their house after a total loss. That’s according to our new research examining whether homes destroyed in Colorado’s Marshall Fire — which burned more than 1,000 houses in suburban Boulder County — have been rebuilt.

The American West has seen the number of structures lost in wildfires more than triple in recent decades. But new research shows that home hardening measures can significantly increase a home’s chances of survivability during a wildfire.

New research shows that wildfires are a major contributor to ozone pollution, and can significantly exceed the impacts of human-generated emissions.

When conditions allow for it to be done safely, research strongly suggests that land managers should let some fires burn to reduce the risk of catastrophic blazes. But making that decision can be complicated. A new study highlights ways to incentivize that often difficult call.