The number and extent of wildfires in areas such as the Amazon, California, Australia and even Siberia, is growing, and the smoke they are producing could provide a medium by which infectious microbes can be transmitted to humans, new research suggests.
Both bacteria and fungi are transmitted in plumes of wildfire smoke, and the risk to human health posed by these living microbes is not well known, according to US scientists.
These particles become aerosolized due to the burning of materials such as soils, detritus and wood, and then become transported in smoke plumes.
