How to Protect Your Community from Wildfires & Extreme Heat

Experts & Resources for Wildfires, Extreme Heat & Climate Change

Communities across California and around the world are grappling with dangerous wildfires and extreme heat. These threats pose serious risks to environmental and community health—from rising temperatures, unhealthy air pollutants, water contamination and more.

Quick PHI resources?to protect yourself, your family & your community:?

• How to Choose?A Safe, Effective Air Cleaner for Your Home ,?created by PHI's RAMP and Dr. Gina Solomon.
• Healthy Places Index: Heat Edition ?mapping tool?developed by PHI’s Public Health Alliance of Southern California and the?UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation to find who and where will be most affected by heat.
• Fact Sheets: Preparing for Wildfire Smoke Events :?Tips, tools and resources to help people with asthma, families, schools and entire communities take action, designed by PHI's RAMP.

Below, we're highlighting some of?the PHI experts and programs working to address the health impacts of wildfires, extreme heat and climate change. Plus, you'll?find more tools, resources and examples to help?you better prepare,?including strategies to reach systemically excluded communities with key resources and information—and invest?in transformative solutions?to promote safety,?equity and resiliency. See more on phi.org →

Gina Solomon, MD, MPH

Director,?Achieving Resilient Communities (ARC);?Science for Toxic Exposure Prevention

Farmworker communities are hit?especially hard by climate change. "We rely on farmworkers for our food, and what we need to do is make sure that they're protected from heat and wildfire smoke—that they're informed about what to do, and that they're actually paid for the days when it's not safe for them to work," says PHI's Dr. Gina Solomon. Watch now →

Anne Kelsey Lamb, MPH

Director, Regional Asthma Management and Prevention (RAMP)

"When we think about the recommendations that experts make during wildfire smoke events, a lot of those simply aren't feasible for low-income residents," explains PHI's Anne Kelsey Lamb, highlighting how social determinants like substandard housing, limited transportation options and cost of air filtration units contribute to increased smoke exposures for low-income communities. See the clip →

Meet More PHI Experts on Climate Change, Wildfire & Heat:

• Paul English, PhD, MPH ; Tracking California; Achieving Resilient Communities (ARC)
• Tracy Delaney, PhD, MS ; Public Health Alliance of Southern California; Achieving Resilient Communities (ARC)
• Linda Rudolph, MD, MPH ; Center for Climate Change and Health
• Michael Dimock, MA ; Roots of Change; Achieving Resilient Communities (ARC)

Explore Tools & Resources to Protect Your Community from Wildfires & Extreme Heat

• Designing Inclusive, Accessible Emergency Planning for All: As part of a statewide campaign in 2020, PHI's Center on Disability engaged residents in three California counties to make emergency preparedness inclusive of people with disabilities, seniors and older adults, and people in poverty. Using a people-centered approach, the Center connected more than 300,000 people to emergency planning information, and created written and online inclusive planning tools to help individuals prepare for emergencies including wildfires, extreme heat and more. See the tools, resources & report?→
• Videos: Farmworkers on Heat, Wildfires & Health: Farmworkers are twenty times more likely to die from heat stress than the US workforce overall. As climate change exacerbates heat and wildfire smoke, resilience efforts in farmworker communities will be crucial. To help increase awareness and push for action, farmworker leaders from PHI’s Achieving Resilient Communities farmworker advisory committee participated in a digital storytelling workshop to develop short videos, in Mixteco and Spanish, that share their personal lived experiences with heat and wildfire smoke. Watch the videos?→
• Extreme Heat: Mapping Who & Where in CA Will Be Most Impacted: In the coming decades, how many days are temperatures expected to soar above 100°F in your community? How resilient is your neighborhood to extreme heat, including having access to shady trees, parks and clean air??The California Healthy Places Index: Extreme Heat Edition?maps heat exposure, at-risk populations and community conditions that overlap to increase vulnerability, with?insights for individuals, communities, policymakers and more. Explore the HPI: Heat Edition?→
• Tips: Choosing A Safe, Effective Air Cleaner: Air cleaners can help clear out wildfire smoke particles and other asthma triggers, but finding the right purifier can be confusing and?expensive. See tips to choose safe, effective and affordable air cleaners, released in partnership by?PHI’s Regional Asthma Management and Prevention and PHI’s Dr. Gina Solomon. The fact sheet includes tips?for?selecting an air cleaner based on room size, cost considerations, CARB and other certifications to look for, noise level?and more. See the resources?→
• Researching Wildfires & Water Contamination: After California's?2018?Paradise?Fire, residents were?concern about drinking water safety in their homes. In response, PHI's Gina Solomon, our Tracking California and UCSF researchers tested water samples, and?provided easy-to-understand results directly to participants and residents—helping to mitigate some of the trauma from the?wildfire?and support?rebuilding a sense of community and personal agency. See the best practices?→
• Helping Communities Monitor Air Quality in Real-Time: In 2015, PHI's Tracking California partnered?to install forty low-cost, community managed air monitors across Imperial County. They discovered that the state’s monitors had likely been missing many pollution events for years: in the first five months, the community monitors detected 1,426 high air pollution episodes—more than twelve times as many as the state system detected. Read?the impact story?→
• Fact Sheet:?How Schools Can Protect Kids from Wildfire Smoke: Schools have a role in protecting kids, staff?and communities against wildfire smoke. In this resource,?PHI's Regional Asthma Management and Prevention and partners share guidance for California schools. One tip: If there's smoke outside, the best place to be is an indoor space with good air quality. If outdoors for brief periods, kids should wear NIOSH-certified N95 masks. Explore the fact sheet?→
• How to?Prepare for Wildfire Smoke Events: Find tips, tools and resources to?prepare for and stay safe during wildfire smoke events, created by PHI's Regional Asthma Management and Prevention. Designed for asthma educators to use with clients, the tips can also be used by individuals to learn how to minimize exposure to smoke and harmful air pollutants. For example, if you have a central ducted air conditioning and heating system, set the system to “on” rather than “auto.” See more tips?→

Building a Multi-Sector, Community-Driven Movement for Climate, Health & Equity

Climate change is one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century. PHI advocates for healthy and climate-resilient communities that have the right tools to mitigate and adapt to climate change, while promoting strategies to reduce the overall factors which drive climate change in the first place—focusing on the vulnerable communities impacted worst and first. Explore our most popular tools and resources to guide your work:

• Climate Change, Health, and Equity: Opportunities for Action :?PHI’s Center for Climate Change and Health?presents a conceptual framework to demonstrate how climate change, health?and equity are linked, and identifies opportunities and recommendations for action.
• Policy Agenda: Green Infrastructure, Public Health and Equity :?Green infrastructure can address climate change, promote community resilience and invest in neighborhoods that have been harmed by disinvestment, redlining and other racist policies.?PHI's Public Health Alliance of Southern California looks at the existing barriers and local, state and federal policy opportunities to expand the use of green infrastructure.
• A Physician’s Guide to Climate Change, Health and Equity :?Doctors are often trusted voices on health issues, making them invaluable messengers on climate change. This guide from PHI's Center of Climate Change and Health explores climate change and topics like food security, infectious diseases and?mental health; and the?impacts on vulnerable populations including pregnant people, workers and children.?

Learn about PHI's work to address?climate change, with more tools & resources?→

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