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Fire-Pollutant-Atmosphere Interaction and Its Impact on Mortality in Portugal During Wildfire Seasons
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  • Ediclê de Souza Fernandes Duarte,
  • Maria Joao Costa,
  • Vanda Cristina Salgueiro,
  • Paulo Sérgio Lucio,
  • Miguel Potes,
  • Daniele Bortoli,
  • Rui Salgado
Ediclê de Souza Fernandes Duarte
University of Évora

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Maria Joao Costa
University of Evora
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Vanda Cristina Salgueiro
University of Évora
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Paulo Sérgio Lucio
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte
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Miguel Potes
Institute of Earth Sciences
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Daniele Bortoli
University of Evora
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Rui Salgado
Instituto de Ciências da Terra, Polo de Evora
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Abstract

Wildfires expose populations to increased morbidity and mortality due to the increase of air pollutant emissions. This study assesses the impact of wildfire exposure in Portugal. In this work, we analyze the effects of the wildfire seasons (June-July-August-September-October) on monthly mortality by using data from atmospheric composition reanalysis, air quality stations, remote sensing, and mortality for exposure assessment, cluster analyses and regression models. Cluster analysis separated the months within fire seasons with extreme atmospheric conditions (months with more frequency of lower relative humidity and higher temperature, higher pollutant concentrations and higher wildfire activities), Cluster 1, from months with cleaner air and stable atmospheric conditions, Cluster 2. Linear regression showed statistically significant (p-value < 0.05) correlation (r) between Cluster 1 and cardiorespiratory mortalities due to Diseases of the Respiratory System (DRS), Pneumonia (PNEU), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Diseases of the Circulatory System (DCS) (rDRS = 0.49; rPNEU = 0.42; rCOPD = 0.44; rDCS = 0.45). Cluster 2 presented no significant statistical correlation between atmospheric conditions and health outcomes. Results shows epidemiological evidence that heat stress combined with air pollution during wildfire season are contributing to increase disease burden. Besides that, we performed smoke forecasts over Portugal by using the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model with satellite‐based fire emission. Forecasted PM10 and PM2.5 concentration reproduced the behavior of the observations (NRMSEPM10 = 3.70, rPM10 = 0.75; NRMSEPM2.5 = 1.51, rPM2.5 = 0.46) during October 15-16th, 2017, fire episode. BC results matches with satellite observations.