Wildfires are a fact of life in many parts of the world, including Southern California, the home of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The recent Palisades and Eaton fires were devastating to both life and property, and their effects will be felt for many years to come. Even after they are extinguished, the secondary consequences of wildfires linger. In addition to providing direct relief to the victims of the fires, the Keck Foundation has actively invested in understanding some of the downstream effects of wildfires.
In 2021, the Foundation made a $1.2 million Medical Research award to support a collaborative effort among the University of Florida, the University of Idaho, and Kaiser Permanente of Northern California to investigate how wildfires might disperse microbes that cause fungal infections. The team is using unmanned aircraft to capture smoke particles from wildfires to identify the fungi they harbor. They are also analyzing medical records to study the effects of wildfire smoke on the incidence of fungal infections.
A group of investigators at Stanford University received a $1.6 million award in 2022 to improve our ability to accurately quantify the benefits and costs of interventions to reduce the harms from wildfire smoke. This work studies both wildfire smoke, including characterizing its pollutants (e.g., lead, arsenic, and other heavy metals), as well as its effects on humans by measuring toxins found in the blood of firefighters and monitoring hospital visits from the general population.
Most recently, in 2023, the Foundation awarded a team at Colorado State University a $1.2 million Science and Engineering grant to study indoor air pollution. The group is investigating not only how chemicals disperse through a building’s environmental control (HVAC) system, but also how these molecules react with other pollutants such as ozone. This work builds on previous efforts by Principal Investigator Professor Delphine Farmer that showed how wildfire smoke leaves harmful materials on floors and walls.
The W. M. Keck Foundation is proud to support this research into the long-term downstream effects of the wildfires that affect our communities today.
