Poor Air Quality during Wildfires Related to Support for Public Safety Power Shutoffs

Abstract

Millions of Americans experienced impacts from the 2020 wildfire season, including unhealthy air quality from smoke. We examine how exposure to poor air quality during wildfires relates to public opinion toward Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPSs). PSPSs have been increasingly deployed in the Western U.S. during extreme wildfire conditions to reduce ignition risk from power equipment by de-energizing sections of the electrical grid, potentially leaving impacted areas without electricity for multiple days. We surveyed Oregon residents (n = 1,308), a state where few PSPSs have been deployed, and found that a majority of respondents supported PSPSs, and that poorer air quality during wildfires, recorded from monitoring stations proximal to respondents, was related to increased support for PSPSs. We also found that females and those with liberal political orientations were more supportive of PSPSs. This research has implications for utilities, emergency managers, and policymakers as they consider deployment of PSPSs to mitigate wildfire.

Keywords:

• Air quality
• climate change adaption
• grid resilience
• power outages
• Public Safety Power Shutoffs
• wildfire

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dmitri Kalashnikov and Deepti Singh for their assistance in obtaining and understanding the air quality data applied in this study. We would also like to thank our survey respondents for their time and perspectives.

Notes

1 We provided a four-category forced choice response (e.g., no midpoint) to elicit a bipolar response (support or oppose) rather than offering five-categories with a “Neither” midpoint option. For a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches, see Nadler, Weston, and Voyles (2015).

Additional information

Funding

Support for this research was provided to Oregon State University by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under grants [NA15OAR4310145 and NA20OAR4310145A].