Climate reporters are endlessly on the lookout for impossible-to-ignore ways to draw readers in—and to entice them to take action. A recent study just hit the general public’s attention jackpot. Led by Stony Brook University faculty in conjunction with Stanford, and just published in Nature, it projects that wildfire smoke exposure in the coming decades could result in tens of thousands of excess deaths in the United States. Specifically, it projects future smoke PM2.5, or soot pollution, could result in more than 71,000 excess deaths per year by 2050. That’s a 73% increase relative to the 2011 to 2020 averages from current wildfire smoke.
It’s no surprise that this truly terrifying projection quickly garnered super clickable headlines from the New York Times (“Wildfire Smoke Will Kill Thousands More by 2050, Study Finds”), NPR (“Wildfire Smoke Is Killing Americans. A New Study Quantifies How Much”), and the Economic Times (“70,000 Americans Could Die Every Year From Wildfire Smoke by 2050, Study Warns”), among many others. When it comes to getting the word out about the impacts of pollution from wildfires intensified by rising temperatures, death apparently sells.
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Why focus on mortality
Minghao Qiu, PhD, lead author and assistant professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), and a core faculty member of the Program in Public Health at Stony Brook Medicine, says his national team of investigators focused on mortality because, “it’s the most extreme possible outcome.” While there’s ample “good research” demonstrating the relationship between climate change and the occurrence of wildfires, there’s less on the health impacts of wildfire smoke. “It’s a big missed opportunity,” he says, especially as we know wildfire smoke pollution can travel long distances.
Wildfire pollution and human health
Though wildfires have “skyrocketed” in recent years, the impacts of their smoke on human health remains active research. “There’s a lot of stuff we don’t know yet,” says Dr. Qiu, adding that it’s starting to appear as though the toxicity of wildfire smoke particulates are “worse than particle pollution or power plant pollution.”
While the health effects of PM2.5 from other sources are well studied, less is known about the specific dangers of particulate matter from wildfire smoke, which is a unique and complex mixture of chemicals with a diverse group of organic compounds not found in car or power plant pollution.
“What we saw in the California wildfires in 2025, when fire entered the urban interface [is] if you burn housing materials or cars then all of those components will be aerosolized and can travel long distances,” he says. Studies have found higher levels of mercury and lead in firefighter’s blood after battling fires that spread into what’s referred to as the built environment, like in Los Angeles, versus just fighting fires in forests. This is all initial data under investigation, but we do know that wildfires can expose large numbers of people to these pollutants for stretches of time—days or even weeks—and can contribute to deaths up to three years after the initial exposure, according to the study.
Lots of response
The outsize attention from the media and other peer researchers on this study, which was based on research that assesses wildfire activity in an increasingly dry and warming climate, demonstrates the extent to which wildfires are on everyone’s radar. Wildfires have significantly increased in recent years, often in the western U.S. but also elsewhere—images of New York City turned orange by Canadian wildfire smoke lingers on East Coast minds. Warmer, drier conditions are increasing the scope, damage, and exposures to people from wildfires. “Everyone can now relate one way or another through their lived experience,” says Dr. Qiu.
Mostly reporters and the general public alike appear to be responding to the study’s “really striking” numbers. “It’s a lot more smoke and a lot more mortality. We want to emphasize that this number is if we don’t do anything. This is not a prediction,” he says. It’s a projection of what will happen if no action is taken. His hope is that the paper will lead to positive changes both in policy and in people’s behavior.
Actions to take to protect against wildfire smoke
“It’s very tricky; wildfires are part of the natural earth cycle, and you can’t put scrubbers on a forest,” says Dr. Qiu. Still, there’s an urgent need for wildfire smoke adaptation to try to avoid mortality. Here are three possible solutions from the study:
- Reduce greenhouse gases. Without taking steps to slow climate warming, wildfires will continue to increase in incidence.
- Better land management. Even if greenhouse gases are reduced tomorrow, there will still be a level of warming. “That’s the inertia of the earth,” Dr. Qiu explains. Some say better land management looks promising in addition to climate mitigation. This means using fires intentionally to control and reduce the amount of vegetation available to reduce the likelihood or risk of future catastrophic wildfires. There are still many unknowns with prescribed fires, and also they’re a trade-off as they still create smoke pollution.
- Protective measures. Wildfires are inevitable so vulnerable populations, especially people 65 and older, need protections from occurrences. Dr. Qiu says indoor air purifiers are a promising way to reduce indoor pollution levels amid wildfire smoke, though there’s a need to scale up both access and affordability.
“This doesn’t need to be inevitable,” says Dr. Qiu of the projected death toll. “We can do what is needed. We hope this number will be much lower than projected.”
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