Wildfires

With extended fire seasons and an ever-increasing number of annual acres burned, wildfires are no longer a local issue. Even hundreds or thousands of miles away from an active fire, indoor environments – and the people in them – can be profoundly impacted by the harmful effects of forest fire smoke. This has made effective smoke filtration and air cleaning a priority across the country, including many areas that had not previously confronted this issue. Whatever the conditions outside, buildings need to be able to maintain consistent Indoor Air Quality to reduce odor and protect the health and well-being of occupants.

Wildfires create a wide range of contaminants, including large (ash) and fine (PM2.5, ultrafine) particles. VOCs, SVOCs, and gas phase contaminants increase when the fire crosses the wildlife-urban interface (WUI). Exposure to these contaminants is associated with a range of adverse human health effects. PM2.5 and ultrafine particles have the most significant health impacts, since they can be breathed into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, causing systemic irritation and inflammation, coughing and sneezing, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, decreased lung function – even predisposing people to more serious conditions like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer.

Children, the elderly, people with heart or lung disease, and people of low socioeconomic status are the most vulnerable to the harmful effects of wildfire smoke. In fact, smoke exposure has been linked to lower test scores for children in impacted areas, with the most significant decreases being observed where the smoke is heaviest.

Given these serious health risks, building standards are evolving to address wildfire smoke contamination. ASHRAE Guideline 44-2024 "Protecting Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire Events" recommends using MERV 13 filters in HVAC systems. The extreme levels of contamination resulting from a large fire event, however, can overwhelm traditional filtration solutions.

Dynamic has been engineering solutions to remove smoke and odors from indoor environments for over 40 years. Wildfire smoke is close in chemical composition to tobacco smoke, and some of Dynamic's earliest projects involved control of tobacco smoke in casinos and smoking lounges. Because Dynamic Solutions have always been designed to hold many times more dust than conventional systems and require far fewer changeouts, they're able to handle the high levels of smoke pollution associated with large scale wildfire events while keeping IAQ at cleanroom levels.

• Extremely low pressure drop for fan energy savings 
• Ultra-long maintenance cycles (with 8-10 times fewer changeouts of V8 media)
• Significantly lower utility bills and operational costs versus passive filtration solutions

The Dynamic V8 has consistently delivered reliable Indoor Air Quality during extreme wildfire events. Featuring MERV 15 performance and active-field polarized media that gives the V8 an enhanced ability to capture the fine and ultrafine particles associated with wildfires - even while bringing in full-occupancy levels of outdoor air.

Dynamic EDGE Gas Phase Removal adds an additional layer of protection for buildings in or near the wildland-urban interface - those most likely to be in close proximity to wildfires. EDGE Panels remove the gas phase contaminants, VOCs, and odors found near such events.

Dynamic V-Banks and Dynamic Panel Air Cleaners are high-efficiency, MERV 13 equivalent, low-cost alternatives to conventional filters. These polarized media products are versatile enough to provide a solution for virtually any piece of HVAC equipment, including WSHPs, VRFs, RTUs, and AHUs.

Provably better performance with less energy and less hassle, even when facing the extreme challenges presented by increasingly prevalent wildfire events - that's why facilities turn to Dynamic to solve for Indoor Air Quality.