Wildfires Affect the Air Quality in Public Transportation

Wildfires Affect the Air Quality in Public Transportation

Wildfire smoke is a mix of gases and fine particles from burning vegetation, building materials, and other materials. Wildfire smoke can make anyone sick. Even someone who is healthy can get sick if there is enough smoke in the air, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Smoke from wildfires can travel great distances, deteriorating air quality for hundreds of miles. Fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke can penetrate closed windows and doors, dangerously affecting riders and operators in public transportation vehicles both in the immediate vicinity of wildfires, as well as hundreds of miles away. Wildfire smoke contains fine particles that when inhaled deeply can affect the lungs and the heart. When Department of Public Health Directors recommend that people stay home, transit operators and school bus drivers are still asked to operate their vehicles and run their routes.

Fortunately, the air in public vehicles can be improved by using high efficiency, MERV-13, equivalent filtration to remove harmful particles from the air riders and operators breathe. Lumin-Air Transit’s advanced filtration, made specifically for metro buses, school buses and mobility vehicles, has a low-pressure drop which means high airflow rates and exceptional clean air delivery rates, even at three-times the filter life of standard low quality vehicle filters.

Watch a video example of the Lumin-Air Transit filter removing smoke.

Filtration is the basis for improving air quality in buses. MERV-13 filters remove more than 85% of the droplet nuclei people breathe out, which can contain viruses like the flu and Covid. Per the EPA, upgrading to a filter rated MERV-13 or higher can be especially important during smoky periods to effectively remove fine particle pollution from smoke in the indoor air.

Lumin-Air Transit filtration provides high efficient filtration with low pressure drop. The filters last 3-times as long as standard bus filters and replacement filter media is economical.  Contact Lumin-Air to find out how improving filtration can be the basis for improving air in transit vehicles.

This article was originally published by Lumin-Air Transit.