Wildfire Smoke Causes 70,000 Premature Deaths

A new study shows that the smoke from wildfires in Canada caused 70,000 premature deaths. This was just from the smoke from Canadian wildfires, and does not include the large wildfires in the US or Europe

As many as 385 million people were exposed to the smoke at a level above what the WHO considers dangerous based on PM2.5. The data is also based on people who were exposed for several months. 

Qiang Zhang, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at Tsinghua University in Beijing who led the study commented, “These results underscore that such extreme wildfires are no longer just a regional environmental issue and they have become a global public health concern.” 

Europe Fires

The truly alarming aspect of this is that it does not include wildfires of record size across Europe, which were worst in France and Greece. They also do not include some of the largest wildfires in the US. Most of the largest of these were in the West, and began with the LA wildfires in January. 

There is no way for a non-expert to accurately extrapolate the effects of the US and EU wildfires on the health of people exposed to the smoke. What we can say is that, when the effects of all of these are taken together, the number is unfortunately high.