A University of Hawaii study tracking 1,400 Maui adults found significantly higher concentrations of toxic metals in wildfire survivors six to eighteen months after the 2023 Lahaina fire. Researchers linked elevated metal levels to abnormal lung function and warn that contamination from urban wildfires can persist long after smoke clears.
- Maui wildfire survivors had markedly higher concentrations of metals including antimony, arsenic, manganese, and barium compared to U.S. reference values, with antimony nearly 40 times the national benchmark.
- Elevated metal levels were associated with abnormal lung function, with arsenic, cadmium, copper, and antimony contributing most strongly to those findings.
- Researchers caution that exposure continued well beyond the fire itself, persisting through ash, dust, soil, debris, and burned structures in the surrounding environment.
- Some pre-existing contamination from agricultural, industrial, and geological sources may have been disturbed and spread further by the fire, complicating the picture.
- A follow-up study is planned to investigate pollutants originating from Hawaii’s plantation era that may have been remobilized by the disaster.
Source: The Garden Island
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