When Fire Meets Contamination
Image of the Atkore United Poly Systems fire in Albuquerque on August 6, 2023. Image from Albuquerque Fire and Rescue.
In the summer of 2023, while I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a plastic storage and recycling facility caught fire, sending a large plume of black smoke across Bernalillo County. At Atkore United Poly Systems, plastic, metal, rubber, diesel, fuel oil, and propane burned for several hours. At the time, my master’s research focused on environmental contamination, specifically characterizing toxic metals in particulate matter. Because I was already studying airborne contaminants, seeing that plume immediately made me wonder what was in the smoke, how far those contaminants might travel, and what nearby communities and firefighters might be breathing in.
Me visiting my dad’s work before learning in college that it is a Superfund Site.
Those questions were already becoming important to me before the fire. During my junior year of college, an environmental and applied geology course introduced me to Superfund sites, and I was surprised to learn that I had previously lived near one. Idaho National Laboratory, where my dad worked, was a Superfund site, with its boundary less than 25 miles from our home. I remember wondering what I might have been exposed to during the four years my family lived in Idaho, but also how many other people live near contaminated sites without realizing they are there. That curiosity led me to undergraduate research on contaminant transport, where I studied how deicing practices could increase radium concentrations at stormwater infiltration sites. I was struck by how something as routine as applying road salt before snowfall could set off environmental changes that ultimately affected water quality.
I became especially interested in what happens when contamination persists for decades and what that means for communities living near some of the most heavily contaminated areas in the United States. My master’s research at the University of New Mexico gave me the opportunity to explore those questions at the Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine Superfund Site, where I investigated the presence of uranium, and other toxic metals, present in particulate matter. The mine was once the largest open-pit uranium mine in the world, with nearby Pueblo of Laguna community members living less than a mile from the site.
Working with Pueblo of Laguna community members changed the way I thought about environmental research. I was invited to community meetings and feast days, and I listened to firsthand accounts of what it was like to live near the mine. Those interactions made the work feel much more personal and helped me understand that community members hold knowledge about their land, history, and environmental conditions that are essential to understanding contamination in ways quantitative data alone cannot capture. Their perspectives made me see the value of asking research questions shaped by the people living with contamination and introduced me to theories of community-based participatory research, an approach I have now practiced throughout my PhD at the University of Arizona.
In central Arizona, community-based participatory research has become especially important in understanding the needs of community members facing a long history of copper mining coupled with wildfire and a changing climate. The communities our lab works with have experienced major wildfires, including the 2021 Telegraph Fire, and community members have raised concerns about what happens when wildfire moves through landscapes that are already contaminated by mine waste and whether a changing climate could increase their risk of exposure. Those concerns help shape the research we are conducting.
Dust generated from community soil samples to be used for in-vitro bioaccessibility assays.
As is essential in community-based participatory research, community members are directly involved in the research and are trained to collect the samples used in the study. In the lab, we use their mining-impacted samples to examine what happens when contaminated soil becomes airborne as dust, including whether metals and metalloids become more concentrated in particulate matter. We also study wildfire-impacted soils and experimentally burn soils at different severities to see how fire changes soil properties and the contaminants present in generated dust.
Wildfire can alter soil properties and contaminant chemistry while also producing ash and fine particles that can move through the air, potentially changing how community members are exposed to toxic metal(loid)s. For that reason, we also perform lung bioaccessibility assays to help us understand which contaminants may become available in the lungs after inhalation of particulate matter. This project will result in an intergenerational data report-back event where community members will be able to explore and ask questions about their data.
Brush fire caused by lightning strike seen from my apartment (June, 2026).
Wildfire feels much more immediate now that I live in Tucson, where I can see lightning-induced brush fires in the Santa Catalina Mountains from my apartment. As hotter and drier conditions increase wildfire risk across the Southwest, the possibility of fire moving through contaminated landscapes feels increasingly relevant to both my research and the communities I work with.
In many ways, this work brings me back to the question I had while watching that black plume over Albuquerque: what are people breathing when contaminated materials burn? My current research gives me a way to investigate that question while also addressing concerns raised by communities already living with the combined effects of mining contamination and wildfire.