“Researchers at UC Davis are studying communities near these wildfires that were exposed to these emissions and are building laboratory simulators to better understand their toxicity.”īarbato’s work also entails research to engineer an affordable, sustainable construction material that won’t burn to begin with. “We know that wildfire smoke from forests is harmful to human health, but little is known about these wildland fires that also burn houses, cars and basically everything in their path,” said Anthony Wexler, director of the UC Davis Air Quality Research Center. The work joins a growing body of research at UC Davis investigating the health impacts of urban wildfire smoke. Part of the project includes quantifying the carbon dioxide and other emissions released when homes burn relative to the air quality benefits when homes - and everything inside them - do not burn. The project features collaborators from two national laboratories, a non-governmental organization and multiple UC campuses. It was kind of like adding two and two.”īarbato is now principal investigator on a grant, “ Assessment and Mitigation of Wildfire Induced Air Pollution ,” from the UC Office of the President. “I was working on this material for almost 10 years, and I know soil doesn’t burn. “Many would say we knew nothing about it,” Barbato said. And while emission factors for different types of wood are available, little is known about emissions from burning homes. The smoke carried not only the ashes and particles of trees, but of houses, cars, metals and toxins. “When homes burn in a wildfire, the things burning are not just wood, and what is not just wood is really making it worse.” “I could not breathe coming out of the house,” he said, adding that the smoke triggered an allergic reaction. Michele Barbato, structural engineering professor When homes burn in a wildfire, the things burning are not just wood, and what is not just wood is really making it worse. While Davis homes weren’t at risk, the region’s residents were still impacted because where there’s fire, there’s smoke. It would become the state’s deadliest and costliest wildfire to date. When Barbato moved back to California in 2018, the need to expand this research to wildfire quickly became apparent.īarbato had only been a professor at UC Davis for two months when the Camp Fire in nearby Paradise broke out. The tests demonstrated that, when engineered correctly, compressed and stabilized earth blocks can withstand magnitude 7 earthquakes, Category 5 hurricanes and rate-3 tornadoes without endangering lives. Barbato and colleagues have been working to understand and improve earth block performance for all manner of climate and disaster challenges.Īs a faculty member at Louisiana State University, he tested it for hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. Made onsite with primarily soil and water, earth blocks emerged in the 1960s as an energy-efficient and eco-friendly means of construction. A key difference is structurally sound engineering, Barbato said. That is, when they don’t crumble in earthquakes and hurricanes. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis photo)įrom Native American cliff dwellings in Colorado to Mali’s ancient Mosque of Djenné, mud and adobe structures have withstood the test of time. How do you make your home where disaster is a given? How do you learn to live with it?įrom left, Nitin Kumar, Julie Nguyen, Michele Barbato and Thomas Tonthat examine earth blocks the team has made and burned. But most people stayed - nearly 40 million. California reported a net loss of 135,600 people last year, for a variety of reasons. There’s a moratorium on those non-renewal notices now, but the threat of insurance loss remains for millions of people. More than 200,000 people living in wildfire-prone areas received notice in 2019 that their insurance carrier would no longer be covering them. Wildfire has hit home in other ways, too. Since the maps’ creation, California has gotten hotter, drier, more populated and experienced its largest and most destructive wildfires in recorded history. That number is expected to increase, as the state is now updating its Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps. More than 2.7 million Californians live in places with a high or extremely high risk of wildfire, as of 2007. We swiped them off our car in white, singed flakes. Even if our home was untouched, we experienced the effects of wildfire. Those of us living in California last fall can recall awakening to orange skies and smoke that blanketed nearly the entire state. This map illustration, showing the fire risk in California, is drawn from the state’s Fire Hazard Severity Zone map and USDA Forest Service’s Wildfire Hazard Potential map.
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