Is Air Pollution OK Just Because It’s Wildfire Caused?

Wildfire-caused pollution in Alaska is an annual annoyance, like in many regions of the Earth, where fires are part of the landscape evolution. Nature-caused wildfire smoke is often excluded from the determination of the annual exposure to harmful air constituents. Therefore, people living in regions with winter human-caused pollution and summer smoke are reluctant to address the winter air quality problem without addressing the hazardous air conditions they face in summer. This post discusses the issues of wildfire smoke that occurs widely in the western US, Canada, Alaska, and many other regions of the World each summer. Learn what’s in the smoke, how wildfires have affected Alaska, and how people cope with it.

 

 

Did You Know that Wildfires Are Not a Developing Country Problem?

When I was in elementary school, I loved watching the wildlife documentaries by Bernhard Grzimek. He was a zoo director and spent time in the Serengeti to film wildlife for German TV. His documentaries often included scenes of animals running away from wildfires.

As a kid, I thought of these wildfires as a Developing Country issue until the 1976 drought in Germany, when the Lüneburger Heide burned. I realized that an extended drought, plus a lightning strike and/or human failure, can set a fire. Wind and flash-overs spread it. However, a wildfire wasn’t a regular occurrence in mid Europe.

 

Interior Alaska Is Wildfire-Prone

Lightning-caused wildfires have been a natural and dominant disturbance regime in the boreal forest of the Interior for millennia. The wildfires play a crucial natural role in ecosystems. However, in Alaska and Northern Canada, the area of boreal forest burned annually has doubled in the last three decades.

 

 

What Is in the Smoke of Wildfires?

The 2004 wildfire season evidenced that even in a remote and otherwise pristine region like Interior Alaska serious air quality problems can occur. Here, the biomass burning emits carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHC), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N₂O), carbonyl sulfide (COS), and particulate matter (PM).

 

 

Moreover, wildfires release vast amounts of water vapor (H₂O) because they heat the underlying permafrost and thaw some of the permafrost. The resulting soil water evaporates, or the soil-ice may even directly sublimate to water vapor.

The gases and particles released by wildfires chemically react with trace species naturally available in the atmosphere. Some of the gases photo-dissociate by solar radiation during the long daylight hours and produce free radicals. The emitted gases and radicals also react with VOCs emitted naturally by the deciduous and coniferous trees of the Interior.

Smoke also contains ash that falls out. You can see it falling like it’s snowing. The air smells like licking an ashtray. Well, Interior Alaska summers smell like a huge bonfire.

 

 

 

Smoke Reduces Visibility

In the atmosphere, water-soluble particles take up water vapor and swell. Thereby, they reduce the visibility in addition to the ash and non-water-soluble particles. When small droplets form, the solution will also undergo chemical reactions.

 

Nature’s Cleansing Processes Can Be a Burden for Ecosystems

The pollutants are removed from the atmosphere by rain, particle sedimentation, and dry deposition of gases. Acid rain is the result of in-cloud and below-cloud scavenging of the pollutants. The removal of contaminants from the atmosphere represents a burden on the ecosystems and natural water systems. Since the peak number of wildfires occurs in summer when insolation and, hence, available energy for photochemical processes is high, the impact on ecosystems and air quality will be the strongest in summer, too.

 

 

A Bit About the EPA Air Quality Regulations

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS)for particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 μm in diameter – called PM_2.5 98^th percentile, averaged over 3 years, is 35 μg/m³.  Note that PM_2.5 is 70 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Various medical publications connected severe health issues to short and long-term exposure to PM_2.5. Note that the World Health Organization recommends 25 μg/m³ not to be exceeded.

Particulate matter less than or equal to 10 μm in diameter is called PM₁₀. The 24-hour average PM₁₀ NAAQS not to be exceeded more than once per year on average over 3 years is 150 μg/m³. The white and gray ash flakes that you see on our deck in the photo above are greater than several mm (1 mm = 0.0393701 inch).

 

 

Reasons Why Fairbanks Is Known as the Nation’s City with the Worst Air Quality?

Tremendous efforts are made to reduce winter air pollution. In winter, temperatures are so low that nobody gets outside to breathe the air. Only at 40 below, Fairbanksans go out in a bikini for a photo, which is just 5 minutes or less.

 

Summer Air Pollution in Alaska

Therefore, people argue that summer air pollution due to wildfires is often much worse than air pollution due to local emissions accumulated under the inversion in winter. They say that their exposure to poor air is higher in summer because people spend more time outside. For instance, they mow their lawn, play, grill, hike, canoe, or simply sit on their decks to soak up some sun rays and boost their vitamin D levels. Building vitamin D is an urgent need for surviving the winter without getting seasonal depression syndrome.

Children, who often spend significant time outdoors during summer break or school programs, are particularly at risk during smoke events. Implementing routine air quality testing in schools and childcare facilities not only safeguards student health but also builds public awareness of just how far wildfire pollution can reach.

The smoke from wildfires means that Alaska is no escape from air pollution, i.e., no guarantee of pristine air.

 

Smoke Knows No Borders

The wildfire smoke and pollution affect more people than just Alaskans. In the 2004 wildfire season, for instance, the smoke penetrated Denali National Park, Arctic National Park, the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In summer, these areas have many visitors. Often, smoke from wildfires in Siberia or Canada reaches Alaska.

 

Managing Air Quality in Interior Alaska

No action is being taken against the wildfires. It is just let-it-burn until human life, structure, or historic monuments are endangered. This policy is because Alaska is only 2% developed. As a result, many areas are pure wilderness. Moreover, reaching the protected areas already makes fire fighting incredibly expensive.

In winter, air quality officials in the Fairbanks metropolitan area advise residents not to burn wood during periods of poor air pollution. It’s to protect our health, and that’s a good thing! However, what’s the catch? Shouldn’t we fight fires to protect our health in summer? Long-term exposure can also endanger human life!

 

The 2004 Wildfire Caused Pollution in Alaska Was Hazardous

In 2004, Interior Alaska faced the strongest fire season since the onset of recording in 1940. About 6671845.3 acres (2700000 hectares, 27 000 km²) of forests burned. Thick smoke layers of large horizontal and vertical extension covered Central Alaska. On some days, the smoke reduced the visibility to several tens of meters and even led to restrictions on air traffic.

 

 

People wore masks to at least filter out some of the ash, black carbon, and other particles. Nevertheless, you could smell the volatile organic compounds (VOC) and the ozone that formed from the precursor gases emitted by the wildfires.

The concentrations of particles with 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter (so-called PM2.5) were so high that the instrument could not measure them, i.e., over 1000 micrograms per cubic meter, which was the uppermost limit the instrument could measure. Note that PM2.5 concentrations remained at health-threatening levels (175 micrograms per cubic meter) for several weeks.

Note: The exposure to wildfire caused pollution in Alaska can exceed that caused by emissions in winter.

 

The 2010 Goldstream Fire

We lived in the Goldstream Valley in our first years in Alaska. The fire in the photos burned in 2010 close to where we had lived. We had seen the fire from far and drove close to it, as we still knew a lot of people in our former neighborhood. When we parked at Ivory Jack, the brother of our former landlord was there too. He was one of our closest neighbors back when we lived there. He came to our car and said, “Your house is fine, and so is everyone. The fire is farther north, and propagates north as well.”

Later in the evening, we met a couple from our former neighborhood at a social dance. “Did they extinguish the fire already?” “Nope. We drove the photos and computers to our children’s house. There is no need to wait until they force us to evacuate. What can we gain by staying at home?” they said, and danced the night away. Thank goodness their house did not burn down.

 

Example of Air Pollution from Wildfires Near Fairbanks in 2019

In 2019, two fires were burning in the Fairbanks vicinity. Depending on the wind direction, Fairbanks was under the influence of their smoke. The image below shows the smoke over Fairbanks on June 27, 2019, in the visible range as seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite. There are two large areas of light brown smoke from the Shovel Creek and Nugget Creek wildfires northwest and northeast of Fairbanks, respectively. The red hot spots are heat signatures indicative of fires. Lightning strikes started both fires. Officials were expecting the fires’ smoke to affect Fairbanks until August, when the so-called Alaska monsoon sets in. Note, it’s not a monsoon, but August is the wettest month in the Interior.

 

 

Which Fires Were Fought

There were firefighting activities in the Murphy Dome area. One of my students, one of my girlfriends, and several colleagues live in this area. The Nugget Creek fire is 35 miles northeast of Fairbanks, around Mile 30 Chena Hot Springs Road in the Chena River State Recreation Area. Some friends and colleagues live in this area.

 

In Alaska, Summer Air Pollution Is Worse Than That in Winter

The diagram below is based on the raw data of the NCORE measurements in Fairbanks downloaded from the EPA. Note that it was called moderate pollution! The pollution went down below the NAAQS when the rain set in and washed out the ashes and particles.

 

Temporal evolution of hourly particulate matter of less or equal 2.5 and l0 micrometer in diameter starting on June 23, 2019. Data downloaded from EPA.

 

 

When the Smell of Smoke Wakes You Up and It Is a Normal

Things changed drastically after our move to Alaska. Hazardous smoke annoys every beautiful summer. You wake up to the smell of fire, close the window, put on the indoor air purifier, turn around, and continue sleeping. After living in the Fairbanks area for more than 20 years, you know that after a week of dry, warm weather in summer, lightning will cause wildfires somewhere, and that the air will smell downwind like you put your nose into an open fireplace. You also know that indoor air quality can quickly deteriorate to the same level as outside air.

 

 

 

When a White Night Becomes Dark, You Know There Is a Fire

When there is a wildfire, the smoke reduces the light. The ash and PM in the air dimmed the light so strongly that the light turned pink, and the sensors of the street lights behaved like they do at dawn: They switched on the lights. Note that in June, the nights are white, for which typically, no street lights are on.

 

 

 

References

Edwin, S.G., Mölders, N., 2020. Indoor and Outdoor Particulate Matter Exposure of Rural Interior Alaska Residents. Open Journal of Air Pollution, 9, 37-60. doi: 10.4236/ojap.2020.93004.

Edwin, S.G., Mölders, N., 2018. Particulate Matter Exposure of Rural Interior Communities as Observed by the First Tribal Air Quality Network in the Yukon Flat. Journal of Environmental Protection, 9, 1425-1448. doi: 10.4236/jep.2018.913088.

Mölders, N., Fochesatto, G., Edwin, S., and Kramm, G., 2019. Geothermal, Oceanic, Wildfire, Meteorological and Anthropogenic Impacts on PM_2.5 Concentrations in the Fairbanks Metropolitan Area. Open Journal of Air Pollution, 8, 19-68. doi: 10.4236/ojap.2019.82002.

Mölders, N., Kramm, G., 2010. A case study on wintertime inversions in Interior Alaska with WRF. Atmospheric Research, 95,  314-332, doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2009.06.002

Tran, H.N.Q, Mölders, N., 2011. Investigations on meteorological conditions for elevated PM_2.5 in Fairbanks, Alaska. Atmospheric Research, 99, 39-49. doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2010.08.028.

 

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