Smoke from climate-fueled wildfires contributed to thousands of U.S. deaths, study says

Wildfires driven by climate change contribute to as many as thousands of annual deaths and billions of dollars in economic costs from wildfire smoke in the United States, according to a new study.

Wildfires driven by climate change contribute to as many as thousands of annual deaths and billions of dollars in economic costs from wildfire smoke in the United States, according to a new study.

The paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, found that from 2006 to 2020, climate change contributed to about 15,000 deaths from exposure to small particulate matter from wildfires and cost about $160 billion. The annual range of deaths was 130 to 5,100, the study showed, with the highest in states such as Oregon and California.

“We’re seeing a lot more of these wildfire smoke events,” said Nicholas Nassikas, a study author and a physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. So he and multidisciplinary team of researchers wanted to know: “What does it really mean in a changing environment for things like mortality, which is kind of the worst possible health outcome?”

Lisa Thompson, a professor at Emory University who studies air pollution and climate change and was not involved in the paper, said it is one of the first studies she has seen to isolate the effect of climate change on mortality. Looking at the impacts across time and space also made it unique, she said.

The paper’s researchers focused on deaths linked to exposure to fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 — the main concern from wildfire smoke.