Health Hazards of Smoke Spring 2001
Fire Storm 2000 (continued)
Standards Comparison
The EPA recommends air quality standards and monitors compliance. These standards are intended to protect all citizens, including the very young, the elderly, and people with health problems. Accordingly, the EPA standards are set at a level well below the risk to healthy citizens.
Compliance with workplace exposure standards is monitored by OSHA. After extensive review and public comment, proposed standards (permissible exposure limits) are adopted and published. The limits established by OSHA represent conditions that nearly all workers may be exposed to day after day without adverse health effects, according to OSHA (figure 3).
Figure 3—The EPA 24-hour standard is far below the OSHA 8-hour
permissible exposure limit for PM10. The average exposure for
wildland firefighters (690 µg/m3) exceeded most community
exposures (100 to 500 µg/m3).
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