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February 4, 2026
SCALACS invites you to a Town Hall Mee6ng on Emissions from LA Wildfires (funded by LSAC/MEET Grant)
Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2026
Time: 10:45 am to 12:00 noon
Venue: Glendale High School, Glendale, CA 91205
Hear presentations by:
Prof. Manabu Shiraiwa
Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine
Title: Plastic Burning Particulate Matter as a Source of Reactive Oxygen Species
and
Prof. Christopher Olivarez Martinez
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine
Title: Stormwater and Drinking Water Quality Impacts Following the 2025 Palisades and Eaton Fires
To RSVP:
: SCALACS Members to kkallury@gmail.com
GUSD Staff & Students to ETahmassian@GUSD.net
Title: Plastic Burning Particulate Matter as a Source of Reactive Oxygen Species
Abstract: Inhalation of air particulate matter can cause adverse health effects, causing several millions of premature deaths per year. Particulate matter emitted by wildfires is of growing health concerns as wildfires has become more intense and more frequent in the era of global environmental change. In recent years, wildfires occur more often in the wildland-urban interface with burning of biomass and urban structures including wood and plastics, leading to massive emissions of air particulate matter including various organic compounds, metals, and microplastics. Respiratory deposition of such particulate matter in human lungs can lead to the formation of reactive oxygen species that may cause oxidative stress in human respiratory tract.
Bio: Manabu Shiraiwa is Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. He received BS and MS at the University of Tokyo and PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Germany, in 2011. Before joining UCI faculty, he has worked as JSPS postdoc fellow at California Institute of Technology and group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. He has received several awards including AGU Ascent Award (2024), AAAR Whitby Award (2020), iCACGP Paul Crutzen Award (2018), and NSF CAREER Award (2017).
Title: Stormwater and Drinking Water Quality Impacts Following the 2025 Palisades and Eaton Fires
Abstract: Urban and wildland-urban interface fires can impair both drinking water systems and stormwater by introducing and mobilizing chemicals from buildings, distribution systems, and legacy contamination sources. Following the 2025 Palisades and Eaton Fires in Los Angeles, we evaluated post-fire drinking water quality and studied the first-flush storm event in the Eaton Fire burned area. For drinking water, we sampled 53 homes in the three months following the fires to evaluate volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (VOCs, sVOCs), disinfection by-products, and metals. Multiple VOCs were detected across the service area, including toluene, naphthalene, xylenes, and benzene, but most detections were below California maximum contaminant levels, with limited exceedances. Proactive distribution system testing and flushing was associated with low post-fire VOC levels. To characterize stormwater, we sampled the first precipitation event after the fires along a vertical transect within the Eaton Fire burn area. Fire-impacted sites exhibited elevated dissolved organic carbon, some metals, and PFAS, as well as ATP levels as a proxy for overall microbial activity. These findings provide field-based chemical and microbial characterization of drinking water and stormwater risks following urban fires, which can be used for future monitoring and water safety policies after these fires.
Bio: Chris Olivares is an Assistant Professor at the University of California-Irvine in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Associate Director of UCI's Water-Energy Nexus Center. His research focuses on interactions between organic contaminants and microbial processes, impacts of fires to water quality and PFAS biotransformation. Chris obtained his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering and M.A. in French at the University of Arizona.
To RSVP for this event:
: SCALACS Members send RSVP email to kkallury@gmail.com
GUSD Staff & Students send RSVP email to ETahmassian@GUSD.net