Wildfire Smoke to Become Most Costly Climate-Related Health Hazard

Wildfire activity has increased in the U.S. and is projected to do more harm to Americans than any other threat driven by climate change, according to a study published in the Nature journal.

On average, wildfire smoke has caused more than 41,400 excess deaths—or more than would be normally expected. That figure is more than twice what was previously recognized in other studies. By 2050, the study projects an additional 26,500 to 30,000 deaths as human-caused climate change worsens and the risk of wildfires igniting increases.

In economic terms, the cost of smoke deaths exceeded all other monetary damages attributable to climate change in previous research, like agricultural losses, heat deaths, and energy costs.

According to NBC News, this research offers a stark vision of an increasingly smoke-choked nation. As fires in the West and Canada send plumes of smoke into the atmosphere, decades of work to clean up industrial U.S. air pollution through the Clean Air Act also is being undone by the Trump administration.

A second study in Nature focusing on worldwide impacts estimated that premature deaths from wildfire smoke might rise to about 1.4 million annually by the end of this century, which is about six times higher than today.