Experts report that wildfires due to the intensified climate crisis are rapidly reversing decades worth of gains in cutting air pollution.
Adverse Health Effects of Wildfire
The increasing number of wildfires that devastated the western US is affecting the region's air quality. According to a study, wildfire smoke accounts for half of all air pollutants during the worst wildfire years.
Researchers from the University of California and Staford University found toxic plumes of smoke that blanketed westers states for weeks as wildfire rages reversed decades of gains from cutting air pollution.
While heat-related deaths have been previously predicted as one of the most severe consequences of the climate crisis, scientists stress that air pollution due to smoke is just as deadly.
Marshall Burke, a co-author and an associate professor at Stanford says, "For a lot of people, wildfires are going to be the way they experience climate change." He explains that poor air quality has estimated doubled over the last 15 years due to wildfires in the West.
PM2.5s, air pollution particles, are known to cut the average Americans' lifespan by at least four months. Health researchers are only beginning to comprehend the severe health effects of added smoke exposure for the larger population.
Wildfire seasons have become dangerously brutal in the West, mostly due to the climate crisis's effects. 2020 firestorms were among the worst in history, with 31 casualties, 10,000 destroyed infrastructure, and roughly 4 metric acres of land damaged in California alone. In addition, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado also suffered.
After enduring months of orange-brown air filled with PM2.5 particles, a team of Stanford researchers analyzed the dramatic increase in hospitalizations for strokes, asthma, and heart attacks.
Studying Wildfire Air Pollution
Bibek Paudel, a researcher at Stanford's asthma clinic, found an increase of 60% for hospitalization of stroke-related conditions within the first fires that occurred last August. The number of lost pregnancies also doubled after the fires.
The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America tackles the evolving risks that wildfires pose on the United States citizens. By combining satellite imaging of smoke plumes and air monitors that record local air pollution levels, researchers saw traveling smoke plumes cross country.
However, scientists are unsure if the smoke plumes are low enough to affect air quality on the ground directly. Hence researchers sought the help of statistical models of how pollution changes in specific locations post-wildfires
"Everyone knows wildfires produce dirty air, so that's not a surprise. What we were able to do in this study is quantify how large that contribution is. We found that it's really reversing a lot of the progress we've made across the country in terms of improving air quality," explains Burke.
The study, surprisingly, shows evidence that wildfire smoke spreads and affects the air quality of wealthier populations., As smoke plumes travel cross country, pollutants can harm even citizens in far-flung areas in the east or midwest.
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