2025 WRTS Keynote: The State of Smoke

Keynote 4 – The State of Smoke: Established and New Evidence on Air Pollution from Landscape Fires

Dr. Sarah Henderson, Scientific Director, Environmental Health Services, BC Centre for Disease Control, National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health

Landscape fire smoke has always affected air quality in North America, but wildfires have gotten longer, larger, and more intense over the past 20 years. While exposure to air pollution from other sources has been in decline, exposure to smoke pollution has been increasing and now dominates lifetime exposure in some places. This talk will review the established literature and the rapidly emerging literature provide attendees with the current state of the health evidence on smoke from landscape fires.