Call for Papers: The 2025 Los Angeles Fires

The January 2025 wildfires of Los Angeles brought devastating loss of life, infrastructure, and community, with over 16,000 destroyed structures. Buildings, cars, furniture, fittings, fuels, and materials such as batteries and solar panels were incinerated. Coupled with >70 mile-per-hour winds, smoke and ash contamination potentially exposed millions of people to fire-related contaminants hundreds of miles downwind from the flames.

Immediate human and ecosystem exposure is related to airborne smoke and ash contaminants including particulate matter (PM_2.5, PM₁₀), ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxide gases, volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs). The list also includes toxic combustion byproducts such as dioxins, furans, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), as well as heavy metals (e.g. lead), asbestos, benzene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), halogenated and organophosphate flame retardants, pesticides, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS; forever chemicals), phthalates, and microplastics.

Longer term exposure to these contaminants post-fire is possible as settled soot, ash, and other debris can enter water bodies, deposit onto recreation areas and soil, be resuspended during recovery, clean-up, and rebuilding and can run off to surrounding water bodies due to firefighting activities or during precipitation events. There are also immediate and long-term risks to the quality of domestic water supply due to direct impacts of fire and firefighting measures on drinking water infrastructure.

The focus of this new joint Special Issue in ACS ES&T Air and ACS ES&T Water is to advance understanding of the fate, transport, and extent of environmental contamination from physical and chemical urban fire contaminants across multiple media (air, water, soil). It is also to investigate the human exposure potential through inhalation, dermal, and ingestion routes, and evaluate acute and long-term ecosystem and human health impacts across multiple endpoints.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Air quality impacts of wildfires in the Los Angeles basin
• Water quality impacts of wildfires in the Los Angeles basin (drinking water, sea water, surface and groundwater, recreational waterways, pool water)
• Wildfire impacts on soil from air deposition in the Los Angeles basin
• Impacts of emissions on atmospheric chemistry and climate forcing
• Environmental impacts of pink intumescent powders and flame retardants
• Investigations of chemistry, physical dispersion, and deposition in the environment of fire-related smoke and ash and their chemical components (e.g. emission factors, improved speciation by fuel type)
• Impacts on human, animal, and ecosystem health
• Measurement and modeling of human exposure to wildfire smoke and ash related contaminants through air, soil, and water (multi-media, indoors or outdoors)
• Epidemiological studies of short and long-term impacts of exposures related to fire emissions.
• Worker health and safety (e.g. firefighters, remediation crews)
• Rebuilding and wildfire resilience (e.g. emissions from the built environment, air and/or water impacts of combustion of urban materials)
• Community based efforts, partnerships, and role of citizen science in wildfires response and recovery

Organizing Editors

Prof. Joseph Allen, Guest Editor
Harvard University, United States

Prof. Rima Habre, Guest Editor
University of Southern California, United States

Prof. Lea Hildebrandt Ruiz Guest Editor
University of Texas at Austin, United States

Prof. Nga Lee (Sally) Ng, Editor-in-Chief, ACS ES&T Air
Georgia Institute of Technology, United States

Prof. Andrea Silverman, Topic Editor, ACS ES&T Water
New York University, United States

Prof. Yifang Zhu, Guest Editor
University of California Los Angeles, United States

Submission Information

This Special Issue will serve as a rolling collection of new works, with a dedicated webpage updating live as new manuscripts are published. Currently, there is no submission deadline to enable longer-term studies to be completed and form part of this Special Issue. If a deadline is established in the future, we will provide ample notice to ensure all interested contributors have the opportunity to submit their work.

For more information on submission requirements, please visit each journal's Author Guidelines page:

• ACS ES&T Air Author Guidelines
• ACS ES&T Water Author Guidelines

Accepted manuscripts for consideration in this Special Issue will include all manuscript types available in both journals. Papers accepted for publication for this Special Issue will be available ASAP (as soon as publishable) online and compiled on a dedicated landing page to form the Special Issue. Manuscripts submitted for consideration will undergo the full rigorous peer review process expected from ACS journals.

Open Access: There are diverse open access options for publications in American Chemical Society journals. Please visit our Open Science Resource Center for more information.

How to Submit

• Log in to the ACS Publishing Center.
• Select the "Journals" tab.
• Choose either ACS ES&T Air or ACS ES&T Water.
• Click "Submit."
• Select your manuscript type, and, under "Special Issue Selection," choose “The 2025 Los Angeles Fires."

If you have any general questions regarding submission to this Special Issue, please contact the managing editor (managing.editor@estair.acs.org).

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