Fact sheet

Bushfire smoke can harm your health, especially if you live with a lung disease (like asthma), live with another long-term illness (like heart disease and diabetes), are over 65 or a child under 5, or are pregnant. The best ways to avoid smoke are to: Close doors and windows to help protect you during short episodes of outdoor smoke, wear a P2/N95 mask outdoors and indoors if needed, use an air cleaner with a HEPA filter indoors, check local air quality using a trusted app (e.g. AirRater), and think about visiting a place with cleaner air like a library or a shopping centre.
Smoke is an important health risk associated with bushfires. Here is what you can do before, during and after a bushfire to stay safe.
We've updated our factsheet on the health impacts of bushfire smoke to incorporate practical considerations to protect yourself from bushfire smoke during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In our newly released factsheet, we have outlined how smoke from wood heaters affects health and what can be done about it.
To address the current waste crisis enveloping Australia, there is a question increasingly on policy-makers’ minds. Can we safely use waste as a fuel, rather than burying or exporting it? Here we provide a summary of findings from our systematic review into the health impacts of waste-to-energy plants.

Join our newsletter

The Centre for Safe Air publishes a monthly newsletter reporting news events, funding opportunities, resources, publications and more. Subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date.

Click to subscribe