New dashboard estimates mortality risk of wildfire smoke

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers have created a web tool that estimates county-by-county mortality from wildfire smoke in real time, to help local emergency managers assess the magnitude of the danger.

The new Mortality Estimation Tool blends federal data from several sources and then maps out the estimated, smoke-attributed mortality statistics in near-real time.

“Last June, the air quality in the U.S. was heavily degraded by smoke from Canadian wildfires – it was substantially harmful to human health,” said Alistair Hayden, assistant professor of practice in the Department of Public and Ecosystem Health, a co-principal investigator of the dashboard.

Unlike floods, tornadoes and earthquakes, wildfire smoke and summer heat waves have never been declared as federal natural disasters that qualify for financial resources in adverse circumstances.

“There is difficulty in measuring smoke impacts in real time,” said Hayden. “Historically, deaths from wildfire smoke events get reported months later. Our new dashboard acts promptly and provides emergency managers a way to estimate deaths and impact – giving them enough time to act.”

The dashboard estimates mortality numbers only due to smoke, not for a factor like wildfire.

The researchers assembled a model that incorporated air-quality sensor data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow website, merged fire hazard and smoke-plume satellite information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and added mortality rates from the Centers for Disease Control and population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

One current hot spot on the Mortality Estimation Tool is Los Angeles County, California, where the Lake Fire has burned 26,985 acres north of the city since July 5, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The wildfire is 16% contained, as of July 10. The dashboard model reflects 10 predicted deaths related to smoke in Los Angeles County and two in Orange County.

“Now that the dashboard is live, we want to see how it performs with real-time events,” Hayden said. “Given the increasing calls for wildfire smoke to be treated as a disaster, numbers can help determine when such an event is escalating into a smoke disaster that requires a major response.”

The nature of particle-laden smoke suggests that municipalities should be prepared. “Smoke from wildfire can travel hundreds of miles across borders,” Hayden said. “This dashboard helps show the magnitude of wildfire smoke, even for areas not considered prone to fire. Nevertheless, it is a critical public health concern.”

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.