Compelled to help: Scientists study the “toxic” hazards left behind the LA fires
As a researcher who was originally focused on infectious disease transmission models, Parham Azizi expected he would spend his career in a lab, but, as he told Inside Climate News in a recent interview, a wave of public health crises changed all of that: first the 2019 measles outbreak in Brooklyn, the COVID-19 pandemic, Hurricanes Ida and Ian, wildfires in Maui, and most recently the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles, CA.
All of a sudden, all of these crises happened, and they were all related to indoor air quality,” Azimi said. “It’s kind of defined my research.
When the fires broke out in Southern California earlier this year, researchers from Harvard Chan jumped into action and formed a consortium with other research institutions at UCLA, USC, UC Davis, and UT Austin, among others. The scale of this partnership is unprecedented, but it felt like a natural step to researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“In these national emergencies, I think all of us in this field feel compelled to do what we can to help,” said Joseph Allen of the rapid response of public health researchers to the fires. Dr. Allen is the director of the Harvard Healthy Buildings Program, and a Professor of Exposure Assessment Science in the Department of Environmental Health. He is also helping to lead the environmental exposures team on the LA Fire HEALTH Study.
In these national emergencies,” said Dr. Allen, “I think all of us in this field feel compelled to do what we can to help.
As part of the LA Fire HEALTH Study consortium, Dr. Allen and Dr. Azizi are working to understand what type of chemicals and toxins are present in homes and neighborhoods in the aftermath of these fires.
In addition to the reports sent back to homeowners taking part in the study, the preliminary findings have also been shared in the form of Data Briefs for the general public, distributed through the study’s website. These Data Briefs have shared indoor and outdoor air quality in the burn zones, VOC levels inside of homes, and most recently, the results of the tap water testing done by Dr. Azizi and his colleagues.
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Read more about the study in Inside Climate News here: After the LA Fires, Scientists Study the Toxic Hazards Left Behind.
Read more about the LA Fire HEALTH Study Consortium here: Long-term, multi-institutional study on health impacts of Los Angeles wildfires launched.
Visit the LA Fire HEALTH Study website.
