A team led by UCLA Fielding School of Public Health experts has trained more than 300 construction workers as part of the state’s response to the 2025 Los Angeles County wildfires.

The project, funded by the California State Department of Public Health (CDPH), has trained workers — including many temporary workers, day laborers and domestic workers — who otherwise have little or no experience dealing with the mix of potentially toxic debris left after a major wildfire, experts said.

“We know many workers are not provided appropriate respiratory protection and the associated training by their employers, and so we’re stepping in to provide services to these workers,” said Rachael Jones, professor and chair of the UCLA Fielding School’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences. “These are people (who) perform work where they may be required to wear respirators, for example, but are not being provided with that equipment by their employer. Many of the people we’re serving have informal employment arrangements, and sometimes it’s because the employers just don’t want to provide the required services.”

The January blazes in Los Angeles County, in both the Pacific Palisades-Malibu area adjacent to the Santa Monica Mountains and the Altadena-Pasadena communities in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, claimed at least 31 lives and damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures, according to county officials. In both cases, the fires released a complex mix of particulate matter and volatile organic compounds from burned structures and vehicles, a different mix of contaminants than are released by a typical brushfire. Debris removal, demolition, and construction stir up dust and other contaminants, creating further exposure risks for workers.

“After the fires, we knew that dusty conditions during cleanup activities would pose a hazard to workers. It was important that workers understood the health risks and had well-fitting respirators to protect themselves,” said Dr. Kristin Cummings, chief of CDPH’s occupational health branch. “For workers in informal employment arrangements, such as day laborers, access to training, respirators and fit testing is very limited. We partnered with the team at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health because of the team’s expertise in respiratory protection, experience delivering training and fit testing to Spanish-speaking workers and established relationships with community-based organizations that are trusted by the workers we needed to reach.”

The project started on an emergency basis in late June, and the team has held training and fit testing sessions across Los Angeles County, with a focus on communities where workers are being recruited for fire-related debris cleanup, smoke remediation, and reconstruction projects in both disaster areas; by Labor Day, the team will have trained from 300-350 workers on how to use the equipment, as well as screening them for any health problems that would be exacerbated by wearing respiratory protective equipment.

Read the full story on the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health website.