ED visits soar after burn-offs

The full health impact of prescribed burn-offs in WA has been revealed in alarming research showing there were an estimated 41 premature deaths, 273 hospital admissions and 123 ED visits because of high levels of air pollution between 2002 and 2017 — forcing the State to bear an estimated $97.1 million in health costs. According to the report published in the Medical Journal of Australia, air pollution in WA exceeded national air quality standard levels on 271 days over a 15-year period. On 197 (73 per cent) of the days, high atmospheric particulate matter levels were directly caused by prescribed burns or wildfires. In the report, Nicholas Borcers, a PhD candidate at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania, and colleagues, said while prescribed burning of landscapes reduced the risk of bushfires, the health impacts “were not widely appreciated and needed to be better incorporated into the risk management of burn-off activities”. “Better understanding and incorporation of their full health impacts into strategies for reducing the impact of bushfires are needed,” the researchers said. The report claimed high levels of particulate air pollution, recorded on 4.6 per cent of days between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2017, was responsible for some 41 premature deaths and 123 asthma-related visits to the emergency department. The researchers also reported that the poor air quality on those days, attributable to elevated PM2.5 concentration, accounted for an estimated 273 hospital admissions — 99 for cardiovascular problems and 174 for respiratory conditions. “Total estimated health costs were $188.8 million,” the report said. “$97.1 million (51 per cent) was attributable to prescribed burns and $77.7 million (41 per cent) to wildfires. “The estimated smoke-related costs of wildfires were highest in 2012 ($24.8 million); in many years, prescribed fires often accounted for most health-related costs, peaking in 2017 ($24.1 million).” Despite the high cost prediction, the researchers said their estimates of the health impacts caused by prescribed burns and wildfires were most likely conservative because their findings were only based on days when air pollution exceeded the national standard — excluding days that were significantly smoky and hazy but had not breached the air quality standard. Co-author and fire ecologist Professor David Bowman said though the impacts of smoke from individual prescribed fires were much lower than those associated with severe bushfires, their cumulative effects were similar because of the much greater frequency of prescribed burns. Ambient air quality in Australia is regulated by the National Environment Protection Measures, which sets the country’s air quality standard levels. Each State and Territory is required each year to report all breaches of this standard, including the sources of pollution.