Environmental persistence and toxicity of weathered wildland fire retardants to rainbow trout

Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
By: , and 

Metrics

1
Crossref references
Web analytics dashboard Metrics definitions

Links

Abstract

Long-term fire retardants are employed to combat and control wildfires by altering the way fuels burn, and they continue to decrease fire intensity after water in the retardant solution has evaporated. After application, fire retardants may persist on dry stream beds or in riparian habitats before precipitation events flush the retardant into intermittent streams. We exposed juvenile (30–60 days post swim-up) rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to fire retardants weathered for 7–56 days on different substrates (duff, gravel, high organic content soil, and low organic content soil) under static conditions for 96 h to evaluate the potential toxicity of two current-use long-term fire-retardant (LC95A-R and MVP-Fx) products. Trout mortality was greater in LC95A-R treatments compared to MVP-Fx due to higher concentrations of LC95A-R in the applied product than MVP-Fx at the same application rate. Underlying substrate affected fire-retardant toxicity, with 31% higher average mortality for products applied to duff and gravel compared to soil. Differences in mortality across substrates and products after weathering may be attributed to differences in the mix ratio of applied product and interactions of product chemistries with underlying substrate. These interactions resulted in elevated ionic concentrations of the overlying water in duff and gravel treatments. Trout mortality decreased 15% for products weathered 56 days compared to 7 days. Our results suggest that long-term fire retardants may persist in the environment and that underlying substrate may alter the toxicity of these products upon entrance into an intermittent stream.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Environmental persistence and toxicity of weathered wildland fire retardants to rainbow trout
Series title Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
DOI 10.1007/s00244-025-01131-y
Volume 88
Publication Date May 14, 2025
Year Published 2025
Language English
Publisher Springer Nature
Contributing office(s) Columbia Environmental Research Center
Description 10 p.
First page 397
Last page 406
Additional publication details