Wildfire smoke could become leading climate health threat

In one of the most comprehensive pictures yet of the growing health risks associated with wildfire smoke, new research suggests ash and soot from burning wildlands has caused more than 41,000 excess deaths annually from 2011 to 2020.

- BY TONY BRISCOE

By 2050, as global warming makes large swaths of North America hotter and drier, the annual death toll from smoke could reach between 68,000 and 71,000, without stronger preventive and public health measures.

"The numbers are very big, and it definitely surprised us," said Minghao Qiu, lead author and assistant professor at Stony Brook University. "We find that wildfire smoke is already killing a lot of people."

During the 2020 wildfire season, the worst in California's modern history, wildfires scorched more than 4.2 million acres statewide.

Many Californians, locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic, encountered choking air when they ventured outside. Bay Area residents remember the sickly orange sky they woke up to five years ago this month. The jet streams carried pollution thousands of miles east to the Atlantic Coast.

In the span studied, millions of people were exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution.

When inhaled, this microscopic pollution not only aggravates people's lungs, it also enters the bloodstream, provoking inflammation that can induce heart attacks and stroke.