In spring of 2024, the Climate Institute received a three-year, $1.1 million grant from the EPA to launch an initiative called "Smoke Ready Spokane." The goal of Smoke Ready Spokane is to help reduce indoor exposure to pollutants in wildfire smoke in the City of Spokane and community centers serving disadvantaged populations, including Northeast Community Center, Martin Luther King, Jr. Family Outreach Center, and West Central Community Center. Partners include the City of Spokane, the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency, and the University of Washington. Grant funding will go toward health awareness outreach, air-quality monitoring, HVAC upgrades, and a public-engaged process of developing smoke readiness plans for buildings and communities.
In addition to partnering with local governments, agencies and peer higher education institutions, the Climate Institute's Smoke Ready Spokane initiative is a cross-campus partnership with the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. Mechanical Engineering’s Dr. Marc Baumgardner oversees the installation of air-quality sensors, data analysis, and HVAC upgrades, while Dr. Aaron Crandall in Computer Science oversees the development of on-site “dashboards” displaying real-time air quality and temperature data, in addition to working with sensor data gathering and storage.
Key parts of the Project:
- In collaboration with the City of Spokane, we are establishing cleaner air centers at:
- Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center
- Northeast Community Center
- West Central Community Center
- In collaboration with the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency and the Spokane Regional Health District, we will create an expanded wildfire smoke health awareness outreach and education program for the summers of 2025 and 2026.
- In fall of 2025, we will conduct a community survey to learn more about the impact of smoke events on different Spokane neighborhoods and communities.
- With the University of Washington Collaborative on Extreme Event Resilience, we hosted a community symposium to learn more about the interventions community members and leaders need to be stay health during future wildfire smoke events.
- In collaboration with the City of Spokane Emergency Management Department and the Spokane Community Resilience Collaborative, we are developing a city-level smoke readiness plan to coordinate resilience and safety efforts before, during, and after smoke events.
Learn more here:
- Story Map on Wildfire Smoke in Spokane: Explore research findings on wildfire smoke impacts and the development of community hubs in response.
- EPA national press release
- EPA Region 10 press release
- Gonzaga press release
Questions: ClimateInstitute@gonzaga.edu