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Press release - Wood Smoke is a Serious Health Hazard

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wood Smoke is a Serious Health Hazard (April 6, 2017, Vancouver, British Columbia)— Vicki Morell feels like a prisoner in her own home. And she warns that if it happened to her and her family, it can happen to you too.  The misery began 12 years ago when wood smoke from a neighbour’s fireplace began to permeate the Morell family’s home. The smoke gives Morell headaches and causes burning eyes and other health effects. “My wood-burning neighbours have told me that it is their right to burn wood,” said Morell. "But what about my right to breathe fresh clean air in my own home? I don’t understand why the right to burn wood outweighs another’s right to breathe clean air.” Morell used to think that closing windows would keep out the wood smoke, but she soon discovered that she was wrong. Wood smoke particles are far smaller than the width of a human hair — so tiny that, research has shown, the insides of nearby houses can wind up having ...
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How to understand PurpleAir sensor readings

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Air pollution has a unique signature depending on the source or sources, location, baseline, magnitude of change, and the mechanisms by which it is produced. He re are some simple ways to identify what's happening when reading PurpleAir monitors like what we have  here . The first image is from a rural community. Note the good quality air with PM2.5 levels between 1 and 2 with a sudden but short-lived spike to 7.5 at 11:15AM. This is a pattern I have seen before and it represents a dirty diesel truck (most likely a water truck) going past the sensor. The second image represents normal variation on a good air quality day.  The third image is from a city with the sensor reflecting activity from a local pulp and paper mill and local traffic. The last image is a rural community snapshot of a good day punctuated by what happens when a wood stove or fireplace is lit nearby. Note the sudden and dramatic increase in pollution and the saw tooth pattern as the stove ge...
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The AQHI downplays exposures from particulate pollution

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How much is a human life worth? If you live in rural British Columbia or in resource-based communities like Kamloops you may be surprised to learn that your life is worth far less than someone from Vancouver or Victoria. Recent forest fires in the interior of BC, and the massive amounts of wood smoke produced, demonstrate how risk communication tools like the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) are designed to treat differentially exposures across populations. The AQHI is a scale used in Canada to weigh the relative contribution of three air pollutants; namely, particulate matter in the 2.5 micron range (PM2.5), ground level ozone, and nitrogen dioxide. It normally ranges between 1-10 or from “low” to “very high” health risk but can reach numbers like 49 as was recorded on August 3, 2017, in Kamloops. The formula used for calculating the AQHI is straightforward and it involves using a three-hour average for these pollutants in micrograms/m 3 for PM2.5, and parts-per-billion (...
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