GFMC AND WHO
World Health Organization (WHO)
Human-caused and natural wildfires in forests and other vegetation as well as land-use fires occur in many parts of the world. Smoke from vegetation fires consists mainly of fine particulate matter in the respirable range and to a lesser extent, of carbon monoxide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are not generally relevant to the long distance transport of air pollutants. During the episode of smoke in the South East Asian countries, monitoring of particulate matter of mean aerodynamic diameter at or below 10 micrometers has shown that short-term air quality standards of WHO´s 1987 air quality guidelines for respirable particulate matter are largely exceeded.
The WHO therefore became active in three major planning meetings aimed to prepare programmes and guidelines which will contribute to prevent and manage disasters caused by smoke from vegetation fires and to mitigate their effects on human health:
- Organization of the WHO Bi-Regional Workshop on Health Impacts of Haze-related Air Pollution (Kuala Lumpur, June 1998)
- Co-sponsoring of the WMO Regional Workshop on Transboundary Smoke and Haze in Southeast Asia (Singapore, June 1998)
- Organization of the Workshop on and drafting of WHO Health Guidelines for Episodic Vegetation Fire Events (Lima, 6-9 October 1998)
On 6 November 2001 the WHO and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, representing the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC), signed a Letter of Agreement (LoA) on collaboration in joint research and training related to the reduction of vegetation fire smoke impacts on human health.
Workshop “Health Aspects of Wildfire Smoke” (2012)
A workshop “Health Aspects of Wildfire Smoke” was organized by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL, Finland) and the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health (WHO-ECEH) with support by GFMC (Bonn, Germany, 21 May 2012). The workshop addressed the global dimension of vegetation fires, including the different fire regimes in natural forests, open land ecosystems, agricultural and pasture lands, both at historic and contemporary scales. Wildfires (i.e., uncontrolled natural and human-made fires) and management fires set in land-use systems and for land-use change are producing smoke emissions that in some cases have severe impacts on human health. The Workshop Summary and Recommendations to the 15th Meeting of the Task Force for Health of the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (Bonn, Germany, 22-23 May 2012) is provided below:
- WHO ECEH Workshop Recommendations (PDF, 0.3 MB)
Bibliographic Information on the Health Guidelines:
WHO/UNEP/WMO 1999a Health Guidelines for Vegetation Fire Events Guideline document. D. Schwela, J.G. Goldammer, L. Morawska, O. Simpson (eds.). United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, World Health Organization, Geneva, World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Institute of Environmental Epidemiology, WHO Collaborating Centre for Environmental Epidemiology, Ministry of the Environment, Singapore (ISBN 981-04-1460-9)
Online download: https://gfmc.online/wp-content/uploads/WHO-Guidelines-Vegetation-Fire-Events-1999.pdf (PDF, 0.9 MB)
WHO/UNEP/WMO 1999b Health Guidelines for Vegetation Fire Events – Background Papers. Kee-Tai-Goh, D. Schwela, J.G. Goldammer, O. Simpson (eds.). United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, World Health Organization, Geneva, World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Institute of Environmental Epidemiology, WHO Collaborating Centre for Environmental Epidemiology, Ministry of the Environment, Singapore (ISBN 981-04-1460-9).
Online download: https://gfmc.online/wp-content/uploads/WHO-Guidelines-Vegetation-Fires-1999-Background-Papers.pdf (PDF, 3.5 MB)
WHO/UNEP/WMO 1999c Health Guidelines for Vegetation Fire Events Teachers Guide. D. Schwela, L. Morawska, Abu Bakar bin Jaafar (Eds.) United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, World Health Organization, Geneva, World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Institute of Environmental Epidemiology, WHO Collaborating Centre for Environmental Epidemiology, Ministry of the Environment, Singapore (ISBN 981-04-1460-9).
Online download: https://gfmc.online/wp-content/uploads/WHO-Guidelines-Vegetation-Fires-1999-Teachers-Guide.pdf (PDF, 0.2 MB).
Executive Summary published in IFFN No. 22 (January 2000)
Additional bibliographic information on impact of vegetation fire emissions on the global environment and human health
For additional publications see this GFMC web page:
