Climate change is responsible for thousands of wildfire-related deaths and $11 billion in associated losses every year, a new study finds.
This key contributor to wildfire behavior has led to approximately 15,000 deaths over 15 years and a cumulative economic burden of $160 billion, due to exposure to fine particulate matter in smoke, according to the study, published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.
"Mitigating climate change would have huge benefits for reducing deaths and economic burdens from wildfire smoke," senior author Nick Nassikas, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement.
Nassikas stressed that this is true "especially in the western U.S. where climate change accounts for up to 60 percent of wildfire PM2.5," referring to tiny dust particles with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometers.
To draw their conclusions, the researchers looked at how much land was burned in blazes from 2006 to 2020 and compared those numbers to the amounts that would have been destroyed if climate change wasn't a factor.
Climate change, they found, expanded the areas prone to wildfire ignition, thereby resulting in more smoke pollution that has harmed people's health.
The scientists observed the greatest number of climate change-related deaths induced by wildfire smoke exposure in 2020. That year alone was responsible for 34 percent of all such fatalities for the entire period, while costing the country $58 billion, according to the study.
The top 10 states with the highest annual death rates attributable to this type of air pollution exposure were Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Washington, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Louisiana and Arkansas, the researchers determined.
Within the 10 most impacted counties — which were all located in California, Idaho, Oregon and Montana — the authors found that deaths linked to climate-driven wildfire smoke ranged from 9.8 to 17.1 per 100,000 individuals.
As a basis of comparison, they noted that U.S. cancer mortality rates are about 17.5 to 18.5 per 100,000 people.
If the effects of climate change did not exist, there would likely have been 10 percent fewer deaths linked to climate-induced wildfire smoke inhalation from 2006 through 2020, according to the study. For some western states, those reductions could have been as much as 30 to 50 percent, the scientists noted.
Going forward, the researchers emphasized a need to integrate climate and health policies in such a way that accounts for increased exposures to harmful wildfire smoke.
They also called for improved monitoring and forecasting of smoke events, as well as better communication to vulnerable populations. Investing in policies that decrease fossil fuel emissions and revamp wildfire management approaches could also help mitigate future public health threats and associated costs, the authors concluded.
"Absent abrupt changes in climate trajectories, land management and population, the indirect impacts of climate change on human-health through wildfire smoke will escalate," they added.
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