The growing ozone from fire smoke is growing health threats to Western communities

When fires are growing more and more often in the West, scientists from Colorado, Utah and California stick into how smoke affects the air and our health.

In a new study published in the magazine, the band shows that large fires, such as those we saw in Colorado, Oregon and California in recent years, produce large amounts of ozone in the atmosphere. This not only affects our lungs and other health problems, but also contributes to the planet’s warming.

Cu Denver Mathematics Professor Emeritus Jan Mandel was part of the research team that included the faculty from the University of Utah (UT) and San Jose State University. The study was conducted by Derek Mallia, an assistant to research professor atmospheric sciences at UT, who has long been cooperating with Mandel when modeling fires.

The team focused on large fires in 2020, which influenced most of the Western United States. On August 15-26, 2020, fires burned over 1 million acres in seven poviats of northern California, causing damage to $ 12 billion. Dozens of fires were crazy elsewhere, including 90,000 acres Utah East Fork Fire and Lionshead and Beachie Creek fires in Oregon, which burned a total of 400,000 acres. At the same time, many notifications about air quality and pollution were issued in Colorado, because the inhabitants dealt with the smoke filled with heaven.

Mandel has developed most of the computer code used to model Wildfire chemical emissions, which ended in the atmosphere. He worked with Mallia and Adam Kochaski, an associate professor at San Jose State University, both long -time colleagues.

Fires do not emit ozone directly. Fire smoke contains chemical compounds that react with sunlight to produce ozone, often far from the fire itself. Modeling requires sophisticated atmospheric chemistry software and weather forecasting that we have integrated with our fire model. ”

Jan Mandel, Cu Denver Mathematics Professor Emeritus

The research article states that the presence of fire smoke increases ozone concentration by 21 parts per billion (PPB). This is an addition of a high level of ozone in the West, exceeding the concentration of the 70-PPB health standard determined by the American Environmental Protection Agency.

Ozone is a health threat. The Department of Health and Public Environment in Colorado states that the symptoms may include pneumonia and cardiovascular disease, and in some cases premature death.

The area of ​​specialist knowledge Mandela includes applied and calculation mathematics, high -performance calculations, data assimilation and fires modeling. It has many degrees of mathematics with Charles University in Prague, including in the field of computer science, mathematical models in the field of economics and numerical mathematics. Before joining Cu Denver in 1986, Mandel was a senior scientist at the Charles University. Almost 200 published articles and sat on several National Science Foundation advisory panels. He also presented consulting services for industry, including to design a Sweppen Swedish jet fighter, and developed a computing method used in Japan in the analysis of Fukushima nuclear reactors at the fastest supercompter in the world. According to Stanford University and Elsevier in 2025, Mandel was mentioned among 2% of highly cited scientists in the world. In 2021 he was assessed by Research.com among 1000 mathematical scientists around the world and 2,000 best technologies and engineering. He retired with Cu Denver in 2024, but continues at the university as a retired professor working on research related to NASA. It also serves as a high -performance computing system administrator.

Other research co -authors are a student of Cambria White and scientist Angel Fargell, who was previously postdoc in Cu Denver, both from the interdisciplinary research center of the State University of San Jose State. The Utah Division of Air Quality, the Firesense NASA project and the University of Utah Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy provided research financing.