Wildfire smoke impacts on indoor air quality assessed using crowdsourced data in California
Yutong Liang, Deep Sengupta, Mark Joseph Campmier, David M. Lunderberg, Joshua S. Apte, Allen H. Goldstein
Abstract
Significance Wildfires are an increasingly large source of particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) in the western United States. Previous characterizations of exposure to wildfire smoke particles were based mainly on outdoor concentrations of PM 2.5 . Since people mainly shelter indoors during smoke events, the infiltration of wildfire PM 2.5 into buildings determines exposure. We present analysis of infiltration of wildfire PM 2.5 into more than 1,400 buildings in California using more than 2.4 million sensor hours of data from the PurpleAir sensor network. Our study reveals that infiltration of PM 2.5 during wildfire days was substantially reduced compared with non-fire days, due to people’s behavioral changes. These results improve understanding of exposure to wildfire particles and facilitate informing the public about effective ways to reduce their exposure.