The impact of the 2016 Fort McMurray Horse River Wildfire on ambient air pollution levels in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region, Alberta, Canada.

ABSTRACT: An unprecedented wildfire impacted the northern Alberta city of Fort McMurray in May 2016 causing a mandatory city wide evacuation and the loss of 2,400 homes and commercial structures. A two-hectare wildfire was discovered on May 1, grew to ~157,000ha by May 5, and continued to burn an estimated ~590,000ha by June 13. A comprehensive air monitoring network operated by the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association (WBEA) in and around Fort McMurray provided essential health-related real-time air quality data to firefighters during the emergency, and provided a rare opportunity to elucidate the impact of gaseous and particulate matter emissions on near-field communities and regional air pollution concentrations. The WBEA network recorded 188 fire-related exceedances of 1-hr and 24-hr Alberta A

SUBMITTER: Landis MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6084447 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature