Rising ozone from fire smoke poses increasing health risks for western communities

As the fires grow and more frequent throughout the West, researchers from Colorado, Utah and California dig the way in which tobacco affects our air and health.

In a new study published in the magazine Atmospheric environmentThe team shows that major fires, such as those we have seen in Colorado, Oregon and California in recent years, produce large quantities of ozone in the atmosphere. This not only affects our lungs and other health concerns, but it also contributes to the heating of the planet.

Cu Denver Jan Mandel Mathematics Professor was part of the research team, which included the school from the Ut University (UT) and the University of San Jose. The study was led by Derek Mallia, Assistant Research Professor of Atmospheric Sciences in the UT, who has long worked with Mandel to model the fires.

The group focused on major fires in 2020 that affected much of the western United States. From August 15-26, 2020, the fires burned over 1 million acres in seven Northern California counties, causing $ 12 billion damage. Dozens of fires dug elsewhere, including 90,000 acres of East Fire Fire and Lionshead and Oregon’s Beachie Creek that burned a combined 400,000 acres. During the same year, multiple warnings were issued on air quality and pollutants in Colorado, as the inhabitants dealt with the sky full of smoke.

Mandel developed most of the computer code used to model the fire emissions that ended up in the atmosphere. He worked with Mallia and Adam Kochanski, an associate professor at San Jose’s State University, both long -term partners.

The fires do not emit an ozone immediately. Wildfire smoke contains chemicals that react with sunlight to produce ozone, often away from the fire itself. Modeling requires sophisticated atmospheric chemistry and weather forecast software, which we incorporated into our Wildfire model. ”

Jan Mandel, Cu Denver Mathematics Professor Emeritus

The research document concludes that, on average, the presence of fire smoke increases ozone concentrations by 21 parts per billion (PPB). This is above the already high levels of ozone in the West, pressing concentrations beyond the 70-PPB health standard determined by the US Environmental Protection Service.

Ozone is a risk to health. The Colorado Public Health and Environment Department states that symptoms can range from cough to lungs and cardiovascular disease and, in some cases, premature death.

Mandel’s expertise sector includes applied and computational mathematics, high performance calculation, data assimilation and modeling of fires. He has multiple mathematical degrees from Charles University in Prague, including computer science, mathematical models in economics and numerical mathematics. Before joining Cu Denver in 1986, Mandel was a senior scientist at Charles University. It has almost 200 published articles and has served in several consulting committees of the National Foundation of Science. It has also provided counseling services to the industry, including the design of the Swedish Grippen Jet Fighter, and has developed a computational method used in Japan in analyzing Fukushima’s nuclear reactors to the world’s fastest supercomputer. In 2025, Mandel was named among the top 2% of scientists reported in the world, according to Stanford University and Elsevier. In 2021, it was scored by research.com among the top 1000 mathematical scientists worldwide and 2,000 in technology and engineering. He retired from Cu Denver in 2024, but continues to the University as a peer professor who works for NASA -related research. It also serves as a high performance computer system manager.

Other co-authors of the study include undergraduate student Cambria White and researcher Angel Farguell, who was previously a postdoctoral at Cu Denver, both from the San Jose State University Interdisciplinary Research Center. The Utah Air Quality Department, the NASA fire project and the Wilkes Center for Science and Politics of the University of Utah provided funding for research.