The Reno area is ranked 12th worst for short-term particle pollution.
The area was ranked 95 most polluted for year-round particle pollution worse than the ranking of 151 in 2021.
Just a couple weeks ago, we saw Placer County's Mosquito Fire bring unhealthy and hazardous air quality levels to the Truckee Meadows region.
“The levels of particle pollution seen in Reno can harm the health of all of our residents, but particularly at risk are children, older adults, pregnant people and those living with chronic disease. Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, cardiovascular damage, and developmental and reproductive harm. Particle pollution can also cause lung cancer,” said Melissa Ramos, Clean Air Advocacy Manager for the Lung Association.
“This year’s rankings show the significance of wildfire smoke impacts in the area causing spikes in particle pollution levels.”
A professor at the University of Nevada, Reno is now studying the impact of this kind of wildfire smoke on the health of northern Nevada residents.
Dr. Matthew Strickland with the University’s School of Public Health says the current goal in his work is to “go back in time, like a 15 year time period, to create a long data set on all the fires that have impacted Reno. Get all the medical records and events that have happened in that time and really start to understand what that relationship is like.”
Dr. Strickland and his team have been working on the study for approximately three years.
"Are we seeing health effects from smoke from prescribed burns? If we are, how does it compare to wildfire effects we see when there’s huge fires and huge amounts of smoke? And that can help policy debate surrounding land management."
One of the things Dr. Strickland says his team is trying to understand is the impacts of different kinds of wildfires. For example, the possible difference that prescribed burning can have differs compared to a brush fire or a large forest fire.
The team anticipates working on these answers for a few more years, but they do predict it is more difficult to manage wildfire smoke than typical city pollutants.
