AIHA® Technical Guide for Wildfire Impact Assessments for the OEHS Professional, 2nd edition

The second edition of the AIHA® Technical Guide for Wildfire Impact Assessments for the OEHS Professional presents the current understanding of wildfire combustion processes and the chemical transformations that generate particulates, organic compounds, and metal residues. 

The scope is on homes, buildings, and structures that were outside of the burn zone or survived a wildfire or a wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire and can be restored and reoccupied.

The primary purpose of the Technical Guide is to help occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS) professionals and other investigators design and conduct wildfire impact assessments for exposure evaluations, forensic origin and cause investigations, or both.

Please note the following:

1. The AIHA’s Technical Guide for Wildfire Impact Assessments for the OEHS Professional (2nd ed) presents the current understanding of wildfire combustion processes and the chemical transformations that generate particulates, organic compounds, and metal residues.  
2. It is a science-based publication, developed by a variety of occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS) subject matter experts in the field.
3. The scope is on homes, buildings, and structures that are outside of the burn zone or survived a wildfire or a wildland-urban interface fire and can be restored and reoccupied. The Technical Guide may be applied to wildfires that expand into conflagrations. However, caution is required when using the Guide to understand the myriad of chemical and physical hazards that may exist in an extensive urban firestorm.  Structure fires that consume buildings and property are outside of the scope.
4. The primary purpose of the Technical Guide is to help OEHS professionals, and other investigators, design and conduct wildfire impact assessments for exposure evaluations, forensic origin and cause investigations, or both.
5. All authors and peer reviewers were required to disclose any conflict of interest before embarking on this and any other AIHA guidance document projects.  No contributors disclosed any such conflicts of interest prior to working on this project.
6. References in the Technical Guide are all published and were subject to extensive peer review.
7. The second edition of the Technical Guide was being finalized at the time of the recent LA wildfires and was published shortly thereafter.
8. Since the LA wildfires, AIHA has been in the process of exploring and considering additional scientific guidance regarding the assessment of wildfires from a broader perspective. The Technical Guide will be reviewed and revised as necessary to reflect the evolving science and application of science to wildfire-damaged homes.