Comments sought on protecting people from wildland smoke and prescribed burns

By Gary Giacomo

In recent years, especially in California, wildland fires have increased in number of fires per year, severity, and duration of each event. Although all fires generate smoke pollution, large landscape and wildland fires often cause episodes of severely degraded air quality that last for days, weeks, or months. The smoke produced from wildland fires can have a significant negative impact on ambient air quality, which in turn can negatively impact health.

Early in 2020, EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) and Office of Research and Development (ORD) worked with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to propose that ASHRAE (formerly the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) develop a guideline for protecting building occupants from smoke during wildfire and prescribed burn events.

ASHRAE formed its Guideline Project Committee (GPC) 44 in mid-2020. Although Guideline 44P, “Protecting Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire and Prescribed Burn Events,” was not due to be completed for several years, a subset of this committee developed interim guidance in the fall of 2020 because of the urgent need to protect building occupants from infiltration of wildfire smoke, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The following interim guidance was provided by ASHRAE and the EPA ahead of the 2021 wildfire season:

• • ASHRAE, Planning Framework for Protecting Commercial Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire Events.
  • ASHRAE Journal, Protecting Commercial Building Occupants from Smoke during Wildfire and Prescribed Burn Events.
  • EPA flyer, Recommendations for Reducing Wildfire Smoke in Commercial Buildings and Schools.

This month, ASHRAE’s GPC 44 released its second public review draft of Guideline 44, “Protecting Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire and Prescribed Burn Events” for public review and comment.

Guideline 44P is the first of its kind to provide recommendations to help building owners and managers prepare and respond to smoke. It was primarily developed to address episodes of severe wildfire smoke, but it can be applied to smoke from all types of fires, including prescribed burns. The guideline provides comprehensive information for building design, commissioning, operation, and maintenance for commercial buildings; institutional buildings, including healthcare facilities; and multi-unit residential buildings, as well as dedicated spaces within these building types intended for temporary human occupancy during a wildfire or prescribed burn smoke event.

This guidance is part of a resource collection at EPA on Wildfires and Indoor Air Quality in Schools and Commercial Buildings, which provides several resources for building owners and managers, school facility managers, public health officials, and emergency managers to reduce smoke concentrations in buildings.

Access the Second Public Review Draft of Guideline 44P at ASHRAE.org. Comments can be submitted via ASHRAE’s Online Comment Database. The comment period closes on Monday, July 29, 2024.