In 2025, AIRAH undertake a technical review of ASHRAE Guideline 44 – Protecting Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire and Prescribed Burn Events. We received support from the NSW Government for this work.

The goal of the work was to support residents, landowners, and building managers in responding to air quality hazards such as bushfire smoke, hazard reduction burns, and dust storms by providing accessible technical information that improves their capacity to make health protective decisions and reduces exposure to air pollution from poor air quality events for a range of building types.

ASHRAE Guideline 44, published in December 2024, represented a logical starting point for such technical information. The purpose of this project was to assess the suitability of this guideline for New South Wales, based on questions posed by the NSW Air Policy Team, now part of the NSW EPA.

The output of this work can be used to inform the development of written technical guidance for a range of building types, including residential, strata buildings, rental multi-unit buildings and/or public housing, commercial, and public buildings. Such guidance could contain relevant diagrams and checklists, building on the ASHRAE 44 framework where appropriate.

Brad Prezant, Affil. AIRAH, was the lead author of the report. Dr Amanda Wheeler from CSIRO provided a technical review, and members of AIRAH’s IAQ STG including Dr Claire Bird, M.AIRAH, Derek Shearer, M.AIRAH, Daniel McCaffrey, M.AIRAH, and Dr Dino Pisaniello, Affil.AIRAH, provided additional review.

Following interest from the various government and industry stakeholders, the NSW EPA has requested that AIRAH make the report publicly available. AIRAH thanks the NSW government for its leadership on this issue and welcomes inquiries about further work.