{"id":660291,"date":"2026-03-16T19:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/660291\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T19:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T19:02:12","slug":"eaton-fire-sent-a-pollution-wave-across-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/660291\/","title":{"rendered":"Eaton fire sent a pollution wave across Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 Eaton fire\u2019s smoke did more than darken the sky: It generated a carbon monoxide and particulate matter surge that far exceeded Los Angeles County\u2019s average daily human-caused emissions, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/acsestair.5c00430\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new study<\/a> led by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>The findings show how a major urban wildfire can quickly become a regional air-quality crisis, sending harmful smoke across L.A. and raising concerns about respiratory, psychological and other health effects that Keck School of Medicine of USC researchers are <a href=\"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/usc-researchers-to-assess-immediate-and-long-term-health-impacts-of-la-wildfires-through-project-firestorm\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">now studying.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>What they found:<\/strong> Researchers estimated the Eaton fire produced carbon monoxide at rates more than 20 times higher than L.A. County\u2019s average daily human-caused emissions.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cPeople could see the smoke, but they couldn\u2019t see the scale of the pollution it was carrying,\u201d said William Berelson, professor of <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/earth\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Earth sciences<\/a> at USC Dornsife and a co-author of the study. \u201cThis one fire was producing carbon monoxide on a scale that exceeded the entire county\u2019s usual daily emissions from human activity.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom in: <\/strong>Burning homes and other structures accounted for a larger share of the fire\u2019s carbon emissions than trees and shrubs did, helping explain why the Eaton fire created such a large regional impact.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How they did it:<\/strong> Researchers combined satellite imagery, computer-aided modeling of the smoke plumes, and on-the-ground air measurements to estimate what burned and track how smoke moved across the region in near real time.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The air data included readings from the Carbon Census <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/sensors-map-greenhouse-gases\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">network of sensors<\/a> deployed around Los Angeles by Berelson\u2019s team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>By the numbers: <\/strong>The team estimated the Eaton fire released about 153 million kilograms of carbon (337 million pounds).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Smoke reached downtown L.A. within hours of the fire\u2019s start, then moved west, reaching coastal areas several hours later.<\/li>\n<li>At some monitoring sites, levels of harmful fine-particle pollution known as PM2.5 exceeded the EPA\u2019s 24-hour health standard for one to three days.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>The January 2025 Los Angeles fires affected the region in different ways, but the Eaton fire stands out because its smoke moved directly into central and western Los Angeles, exposing communities far from the burn area.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>By contrast, early emissions from the Palisades fire were carried offshore by winds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What it means: <\/strong>The study suggests urban wildfires should be understood not only as disasters of flame and loss, but also as citywide air-quality emergencies with climate and public-health consequences.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The findings could help scientists and policymakers better estimate the full costs of urban fires, including emissions and air-quality impacts that spread across an entire metro area.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>About the study<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In addition to Berelson, study authors include Pietro Vannucci and Wenye Wang of USC Dornsife and Jooil Kim and Timothy Lueker of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.<\/p>\n<p>The research was supported by USC through a President\u2019s Sustainability Award and a USC Dornsife Public Exchange Grant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2025 Eaton fire\u2019s smoke did more than darken the sky: It generated a carbon monoxide and particulate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":660292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,279555,2961,224,5337,61094,1183,279556,240919,5609],"class_list":{"0":"post-660291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-interdisciplinary-health","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-news-releases","15":"tag-research","16":"tag-research-that-saves-lives","17":"tag-usc-dornsife","18":"tag-wildfires"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116240407222368821","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}