UCLA study of wildfire smoke’s long-term health effects finds upwards of 50,000 deaths in 11 years
LCI project director calculates an associated economic impact of more than $430 billion
A pyrocumulus cloud rising from the Dixie Fire on July 22, 2021. Credit: Wikipedia / Frank Schulenburg
By UCLA Newsroom
New research by UCLA finds thousands more people than previously counted die each year in California due to the health impacts of wildfire smoke.
The research, published today in the journal Science Advances, finds that inhaling the fine particulate matter known as PM2.5 from wildland fires led to 52,500 to 55,700 deaths in the 11 years from 2008-2018, with an associated economic impact of $432 billion to $456 billion.
“Our numbers are higher than previous estimates because previous measurements considered the harms from short-term smoke exposure, but wildfire smoke is becoming an ongoing problem, and as a result, contributing to long-term disease formation,” said Rachel Connolly, the study’s lead author and project director for air quality research at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.
To read more about the study, click here.
Picture by Tambako the Jaguar