Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Beyond the Smoke: Exploring the Broader Environmental and Health Impacts - 2026 Society of Toxicology Symposium (March 25, 2026)

As climate change accelerates and human development continues to expand into fire-prone wildland areas, wildfires, particularly those occurring in the WUI, are becoming increasingly frequent and destructive, leading to more chemically complex emissions and residues. These fires now impact not only forests and grasslands, but also densely populated communities, critical infrastructure, and thousands of homes constructed with synthetic and engineered materials. The combustion of these synthetic building materials, vehicles, and consumer goods during WUI fires releases a unique and poorly characterized mixture of toxic pollutants, including VOCs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals, microplastics, and others. While the visible plumes of smoke are often the most immediately noticeable and discussed aspect of WUI fires, the full scope of their effects on communities, the environment, and public health extends far beyond the smoke itself.Despite the growing number of affected communities and the scale of environmental devastation, our understanding of the acute and chronic health consequences of WUI fire exposures remains fragmented. While traditional wildfire research has focused primarily on ambient air quality and biomass derived emissions, the WUI environment introduces new layers of complexity involving indoor exposures, structural damage, ash and residue toxicity, and emerging contaminants. There is an urgent need for a cohesive, interdisciplinary framework that bridges environmental science, toxicology, epidemiology, and disaster response planning to address this evolving public health threat.This symposium, “Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Beyond the Smoke: Exploring the Broader Environmental and Health Impacts,” brought together experts at the forefront of WUI fire research to present novel findings from recent major WUI events, innovative exposure models, and cutting-edge environmental analyses. Using real-world case studies, controlled laboratory exposures, and advanced analytical techniques, the session examined how WUI fires produce unique toxicants, how these toxicants enter and move through environments and human bodies, and how they may lead to adverse health outcomes—particularly in returning residents and vulnerable populations, such as children and emergency responders.These proceedings provide a summary of technical information exchanged during the on-site 2026 Society of Toxicology (SOT) Symposium, “Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Beyond the Smoke: Exploring the Broader Environmental and Health Impacts,” in San Diego, CA, on March 25, 2026. This summary is not intended to provide a complete transcription of each speaker’s presentation or participant’s specific comments. Speakers may be contacted directly for details of their presentations and subject matter expertise. These proceedings are provided to share summaries of the presentations among all stakeholders. We hope this exchange of information will enable more collaborative discussions, research, innovation, informed policy advancement, and science-based initiatives around wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires and their impact on human health.MODERATORS:Chair: Yin Yee (Cynthia) Choo, Ph.D., UL Research Institutes’ Chemical InsightsCo-chair: Sumeet Saksena, Ph.D., East-West CenterSYMPOSIUM PRESENTERS (IN ORDER OF PRESENTATIONS):Timothy Nurkiewicz, Ph.D., West Virginia UniversityMohammed Baalousha, M.Sc., Ph.D., University of South CarolinaDavid Kalafut, UL Research Institutes’ Chemical InsightsParham Azimi, Ph.D., Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthJosé Guillermo Cedeño Laurent, M.Sc., Sc.D., Rutgers School of Public Health