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Up Front: Smoke, Fires, Building Fire Protection, Indoor & Outdoor Air Quality
Climate information from the U.S. government that shows that the world is heating up faster and severe storms are occurring more-frequently than many people realized and that emphasizes that every community, rural or urban, will be seriously affected.
Photo: microscopic view of soot particles. [Click to enlarge any image]
The U.S. EPA has painted what the Times calls a "grim picture" of what lies ahead, whether your concern is sudden deep freeze, heavy snowfall, smoke and unsafe air, wildifires, lyme disease, access to safe drinking water, or even adequate electricity.
How to Reduce Indoor Wildfire Smoke & Soot Hazards in Buildings
Here are 4 key steps you can take to reduce the level of smoke or other airborne particles inside your building:
Close the windows and doors
Avoid ventilating the building with outdoor air when that air is unusually heavily contaminated with smoke and debris. You'll fare better by closing the building and doing what you can to filter its indoor air.
An exception: some fresh air ventilation systems incorporate both an air-to-air heat exchanger and an air filter. Those, equipped with a HEPA filter, might permit filtered fresh-air ventilation for your building.
If your building has forced air heating or central air conditioning, turn the system fan from AUTO to MAN or ON so that the blower fan runs continually
See AIR FILTER OPTIMUM INDOOR - Cascaded & Optimal Air Filters for IAQ . We recommend using HEPA-rated filters as those perform best at removing small airborne particles.
Portable air cleaners:
If your building doesn't have air conditioning or forced air heating, you can still add free-standing portable air cleaners to reduce the level of indoor articles in sleeping areas and close the door to those rooms when using the air cleaner.
While no portable air cleaner can remove the actual source of indoor air pollution, especially in a closed room of a size within the air cleaner's or "air purifier" rated capacity, these machines can reduce the level of ariborne particles.
Wear an N95-rated or KN95-rated face mask even while indoors.
Every unbiased expert agrees that wearing an N95 mask is important for protecting respiratory health such as during the COVID epidemic or in serious wildfire smoke conditions.
Really? Well yes but ... some people who have limited lung capacity may find wearing a face mask or a true respirator difficult. Experiment. Wear an N95 mask for an hour and see if it helps you to breathe more comfortably.
Here are some of our other articles that can help with current wildfire & smoke pollution across Canada, the U.S. and extending to northern Mexico.
Smoke is the result of incomplete combustion, which produces tiny particles of carbon in the air. When deposited, these particulates are identified as soot. Put simply, the particle size of smoke residue on a surface can present a respiratory hazard.
The particle size of soot is approximately 2.5 microns, a size that is associated with deep lung penetration. Particles that are approximately 10 microns or larger get trapped in the upper respiratory tract. Particles that are 5 microns or smaller can make it down to the lower lung where the gas exchange occurs in the alveoli.
In order to offer some perspective on the size of these particles, the dust you see flying in the light coming through a window is about 40 microns in size. Airborne soot present within the breathing zone of workers is too small to be seen with the naked eye and can easily be inhaled. ... Typically, soot is representative of what has burned, but may include byproducts that at first seem unrelated to the original material. For example, hydrogen cyanide is a byproduct of burning wool. When wood burns it can produce manganese and benzene.
As many products as there are in the world, there are an equal number of byproducts produced in a fire. Each fire is different based on the contents of what has burned during the event. Organic and inorganic materials produce different types of smoke residue or soot.
These residues may be present on surfaces that conservators may be tasked with treating. Burnt organic material produces soot that is hard to see and often has a very pungent odor. This is known as protein smoke. It can discolor paints and varnishes. Protein smoke can disperse over large areas and attach itself to everything.
Javins, Tom, P.E., Gail Robarge, Emily Gibb Snyder, Gregory Nilsson, Steven J. Emmerich, PROTECTING BUILDING OCCUPANTS FROM SMOKE DURING WILDFIRE and PRESCRIBED BURN EVENTS [PDF] US EPA, who republished this article from ASHRAE, the ASHRAE Journal, March 2021 pp. 38-43, retrieved 2023/06/20, original source: epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/documents/ashrae_journal_article_march_2021-tagged.pdf
This article contains 10 specific suggestions for protecting building occupants from wildfire smoke.
Excerpt: ASHRAEGuideline 44P, Protecting Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire and Prescribed Burn Events, will provide HVAC and building measures to minimize occupant exposures and health impacts from smoke during wildfire and prescribed burn smoke events.
This column summarizes the planning framework for Guideline 44P, which is being shared by the guideline committee to provide immediate information on this pressing issue while the committee continues work on the complete guideline.
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Carson, Dunlop & Associates Ltd., 120 Carlton Street Suite 407, Toronto ON M5A 4K2. Tel: (416) 964-9415 1-800-268-7070 Email: info@carsondunlop.com. Alan Carson is a past president of ASHI, the American Society of Home Inspectors.
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