Assessing wildland fire smoke risk necessitates the fusing of information about smoke exposure and the affected population. To support a variety of potential smoke risk assessment investigations, Vargo combined the US Census Block Group Centers of Population with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hazard Mapping System Smoke product covering a June 2010 through December 2019 time span. This resulting data set exceeding 59 million records can help accelerate research to understand smoke exposure in the United States and, in Vargo's words, “can be important for targeting funding, interventions, and communications to areas more often impacted by smoke from fires.” In Australia and Canada, two innovative end user tools have been developed to support public health response by combining critical data sets to inform timely action by individuals and public health agencies. The Air Quality Visualization (AQVx) tool, described by Williamson and Lucani, is a smoke risk management tool that combines modeled and measured PM_2.5 (mass of particles with aerodynamic diameter <2.5 μm) concentrations, crowd-sourced smoke and symptom reports from the complementary AirRater smartphone application, fire information, population density, and locations of sensitive populations (aged care facilities, schools). A noted utility of AQVx is to support government messaging of risk to affected communities. The British Columbia Asthma Prediction System (BCAPS), described by Henderson et al. (https://maps.bccdc.ca/bcaps/), integrates smoke forecasts using an innovative methodology with health indicator data to predict the number of asthma inhaler dispensations over the coming days.

Public health communication is most impactful if the delivery of information connects with the intended audience and motivates exposure reduction action. Research in the midst of an emergency is challenging to accomplish but provides critical insights. Marfori et al. conducted a qualitative study in Tasmania, Australia, immediately after a prolonged and significant wildfire smoke episode to elucidate the complexity of smoke risk communication. Interviewees who lived near to the fires were faced with concurrent property and smoke risks, and recommended actions were sometimes in conflict (e.g., work outside to reduce fuels around your home for fire prevention; stay inside and rest to reduce smoke exposure). Other interviewees, at a lower risk from the fire, wondered why the risks from the significant smoke exposure were not well-communicated by emergency services nor consistently covered by the media. In another study, Hano et al. described quantitative insights gained through volunteer participants in the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Smoke Sense smartphone application and research study (https://www.epa.gov/air-research/smoke-sense-study-citizen-science-project-using-mobile-app). They found that the participants grouped by perspectives, not demographics, in terms of their responses to wildfire smoke risk.

To capture the current state of knowledge on risk reduction methods, Davison et al. hosted and summarized a web summit focused on the creation of cleaner indoor air spaces during smoke events. At the time this article was developed, it was noted that no national building guidelines existed. An important recent development was the release of the publicly available American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Planning Framework for Protecting Commercial Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire Events (17). This precedes the full Guideline 44 document, expected in 2022.

Significant wildfire smoke episodes affect many regions worldwide and this risk is anticipated to grow in the future (18). On an international scale, sharing new technologies, data sets, and insights will support more effective risk communication strategies to protect public health.

GH and WC wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

The summary thoughts presented here are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, or U.S. Government determination or policy.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.