Wildfire Smoke Impacts on Indoor Air Quality Assessed Using Crowdsourced Data in California

Details

• Journal Title:
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Personal Author:
  Liang, Yutong ; Sengupta, Deep ; Campmier, Mark J. ; Lunderberg, David M. ; Apte, Joshua S. ; Goldstein, Allen H.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; CPO (Climate Program Office)
• Description:
  Wildfires have become an important source of particulate matter (PM2.5 < 2.5-µm diameter), leading to unhealthy air quality index occurrences in the western United States. Since people mainly shelter indoors during wildfire smoke events, the infiltration of wildfire PM2.5 into indoor environments is a key determinant of human exposure and is potentially controllable with appropriate awareness, infrastructure investment, and public education. Using time-resolved observations outside and inside more than 1,400 buildings from the crowdsourced PurpleAir sensor network in California, we found that the geometric mean infiltration ratios (indoor PM2.5 of outdoor origin/outdoor PM2.5) were reduced from 0.4 during non-fire days to 0.2 during wildfire days. Even with reduced infiltration, the mean indoor concentration of PM2.5 nearly tripled during wildfire events, with a lower infiltration in newer buildings and those utilizing air conditioning or filtration.
• Keywords:
  Aerosols Air Quality Wildfires Air Quality
• Source:
  PNAS 118 (36) e2106478118
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2106478118
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA16OAR4310107
• Place as Subject:
  California
• Rights Information:
  Other
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:fa7789c0ab97d9001c5ed09d58e89c71e6cc69c05716bcddec4507d7e91b398c3044f705f34d2474a745e97bbe3d0ab1a0a5d1a44c3d5c83ae62117aca34aa0d
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/45563/noaa_45563_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1010.79 KB ]