State Senate Bill Would Require Assessing Health Impacts from Wildfire Smoke

SACRAMENTO — District 1 Senator Megan Dahle announced January 23 that she is co-authoring legislation that would require the state to assess the health effects and costs of exposure to wildfire smoke and use the results in planning for fire and forest management.

In the last 10 years, rural areas in Northern California have experienced major impacts from large wildfires, including unhealthy air pollution that, in some areas, exceeded levels recorded in the world’s most polluted cities. Wildfire smoke is a complex mixture of hazardous components that can cause respiratory disorders, heart attacks, and even premature death, according to California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and the US EPA. Fine particles are the main health hazard in wildfire smoke, but when wildfire moves into urban areas, the smoke can also contain toxic chemicals from burning manmade materials like plastics and solvents.

The new bill, SB 899, was introduced by District 12 Senator Shannon Grove (Republican, Bakersfield). If adopted, it would require the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force—a program of the Governor’s Office—to collaborate with OEHHA and the state Department of Public Health to estimate the number of emergency room visits and deaths resulting from exposure to smoke from “high severity” wildfires and the resulting health care costs. The agencies would also develop a model to estimate the health and economic benefits of achieving the goals laid out in the state’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan and make recommendations for increasing health benefits through the plan. The assessment would be completed by July 2028 and would use existing health, economic, and environmental data to gauge fire impacts since 2018.