Public Health and Safety
PUBLIC SAFETY
Red Flag Warnings and Air Quality Links
National Weather Service – Red Flag Warnings and Western Region Fire Weather Watch
National Significant Wildfire Potential Outlooks - Decision support tool: the main objective is to improve information available to fire management decision makers. These assessments are designed to inform decision makers for proactive wildland fire management, thus better protecting lives and property, reducing firefighting costs and improving firefighting efficiency.
AirNow.gov: Enter a Zipcode, City or State for air quality information - an accurate source for current national, state, local, (or worldwide) AQI (Air Quality Index and Forecast) and Particulate Matter (PM) measurements. The site provides resources to protect your health from transportation-related pollutants and wildfire smoke and ash. (Environmental Protection Agency)
PurpleAir and PurpleAirMaps provide the most cautious health-based numbers with accurate measurements of Particulate Matter levels, a good indicator of urban pollution or ash concentrations during wildfire conditions. Note: You do not need to own a PurpleAir sensor to access local air quality maps.
Emergency Alert Links
Watch Duty - (Non-profit 501c3) -Download App and Register.
Real-time ALERTS and firefighting efforts for wildfires in chosen counties. Statewide Wildfire Maps
NIXLE / Everbridge - Used by local Police Departments - Download App and Subscribe to Service
LOCAL RESOURCES:
Search for County-Level Office of Emergency Management (OEM) or Other Emergency Website
PUBLIC HEALTH
“Impacts of wildfire disproportionately affect vulnerable communities with less adaptive capacity to respond to and recover from hazards like wildfire.
Low-income and minority communities, especially Native American, Black, Latinx and Southeast Asian communities, are the most marginalized groups when wildfires occur, in part, because they have fewer resources to have a car to evacuate, buy fire insurance, implement defensible space around their homes, or rebuild, and they have less access to disaster relief during recovery.”
Source: (Fothergill and Peak 2004; Morris 2018; Harnett 2018; Davies 2018; Richards 2019).
“Health impacts from wildfires, particularly increased air pollution from fine particulates (PM2.5) in smoke, also disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, including low-income communities, people of color, children, the elderly and people with pre-existing medical conditions.”
Source: (Künzli et al. 2006; Reid et al. 2016; Hutchinson et al. 2018; Jones et al. 2020).
ARTICLES AND RESEARCH
Anthropogenic climate change contributes to wildfire particulate matter and related mortality in the US. Law, B.E. et al. Nature Communications Earth Environment. (2025).
Built to Burn. California’s Wildlands Developments Are Playing With Fire - Bold Land-use Reforms Needed Now to Ensure Safer, Sustainable Future. Yap, T. et al. Center for Biological Diversity. (February 2021).
After the Fire: vulnerable communities respond and rebuild. Richards, R. Center for American Progress. (July 25, 2019).
Differential respiratory health effects from the 2008 northern California wildfires: A spatiotemporal approach. Reid, C. E. et al. Environmental Research 150, 227–235. (2016).
EPAs research efforts to protect public and environmental health from wildland fire smoke. EPA. (July 22, 2024).
Health effects of the 2003 Southern California wildfires on children. Künzli, N. et al. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 174, 1221–1228. (2006).
Low-income communities struggle to recover after a wildfire. Harnett, S. KQED. (September 19, 2018).
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and wildfire-related particulate matter during 2015-2017 California wildfires. Jones, C. G. et al. Journal of the American Heart Association 9: e014125. (2020).
Poverty and disasters in the United States: A review of recent sociological findings. Fothergill, A., Peek, L. A. Natural Hazards 32, 89–110. (2004).
The San Diego 2007 wildfires and Medi-Cal emergency department presentations, inpatient hospitalizations, and outpatient visits: An observational study of smoke exposure periods and a bidirectional case-crossover analysis. Hutchinson, J. A. et al. PLoS Medicine 15(7). (2018).
The unequal vulnerability of communities of color to wildfire. Davies, I. P. et al. PLoS ONE 13(11), 1–15. (2018).
Who Among the elderly is most vulnerable to exposure to and health risks of fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke? Liu, J. C. et al. American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 186. (2017).
Wildfire smoke exposure and human health: significant gaps in research for a growing public health issue. Black, C. et al. Environ Toxicol Pharmacol. (2017).