As Californians have fled ferocious wildfires in recent years, UC Davis scientists, veterinarians, physicians and teachers have also been responding to that trauma: treating people and animals, investigating the effects on mental and physical health, and trying to discover what the future might hold as wildfires burn into towns and suburbs.

It is the NASA Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) whose aim is not only to deliver scientific data, but also to benefit public health, since it will provide key information about particulate material which, when in high concentrations has been linked to cardiac and respiratory problems.

Wildfires have long been a natural part of healthy forest ecosystems. But recent suppression of wildfires by humans has been so aggressive, plants and trees have evolved less able to withstand them.

Recently the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) published a report stating that 85% of parks deal with unhealthy air due to ozone. While ozone is thought of typically resulting from vehicle and industrial emissions, park plants also emit compounds that react with NOx gasses to make ozone.

"Thomas Cahill, professor emeritus of physics and atmospheric sciences, died from complications of cancer on April 30, 2019, in Davis. He was 82.

"During his five decades in research, Cahill delighted in applying his physics expertise to problems in the public sphere, especially those in environmental science. He engaged in battles to save Mono Lake, remove lead from gasoline, protect air quality in national parks, and safeguard first responders following the 2001 World Trade Center disaster."

In March, Valero's Benicial refinery spit out pollution which caused city officials to warn residents to stay indoors. The Bay Area Air Quality Monitoring District sent a van to monitor the situation because currently there is no stationary air quality monitoring device in the residential areas despite the fact that it's home to one of the largest refineries in California. 

As explained in the article "Valer's March Pollution Release Exposes Weaknesses in Benicia's Air Monitoring System" by Ted Goldberg: 

An article by Ted Goldberg of KQED News has looked into the release of a large unexpected plume of petroleum coke dust by Valero's Benicia refinery. The release had local fire officials encouraging people with respiratory problems to avoid activity outdoors. 

A partial shutdown of the facility resulted from this incident. This is considered the worst breakdown since a 2017 power outage.

Dirty air kills millions of people around the world every year, but it can be hard to put a face on a danger so vast. Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is fighting to do just that. The face she has in mind is her daughter’s.

Ella Kissi-Debrah was 9 when she died in 2013, after three years of asthma attacks so bad, they sometimes triggered seizures. In photos, her smile is broad and bright, her hair braided. She loved music and swimming, and dreamed of becoming a pilot.

The Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network measures the chemical composition of atmospheric particulate matter at over 160 locations throughout the United States. As part of the routine quality control process, we noted decreases in the network-wide vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni) concentrations in 2015 relative to the previous years. Enriched V and Ni with respect to soil are indicative of heavy fuel oil burning and are often used as tracers for emissions from marine vessels.

In the pilot episode of ABC10’s new series, The New Normal, California’s leaders tell us we’ve entered a “new normal” of more intense wildfires. ABC10 explores the recent California wildfires, what experts are doing to prevent deadly mega-fires, and the struggles between letting fires burn and air pollution.

Anthony Wexler shows ABC10 the mobile air monitoring stations used to measure wildfire smoke and how the pollution is a big obstacle to the burning plan. 

Watch the entire episode this Friday at 11pm on ABC10 or on YouTube below: