October 23 2024
By Minhoo Jeong
As climate change continues to drive an increase in global wildfires, the number of deaths caused by wildfire smoke has surged 19-fold over the past 50 years, according to new research.
An international team of scholars from South Korea and Japan, including Dr. Chae-Yeon Park from Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies, published a study in the journal *Nature Climate Change* on Oct. 21. In the paper, entitled *The Contribution of Climate Change to Mortality from Wildfire-Induced Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5)*, the linkage between PM2.5 emissions of wildfires and mortality rates during the 1960s and 2010s were studied.
In fact, fine particulates from wildfires, especially PM2.5, result in deteriorated human health since these small particles penetrate to the respiratory system. The authors of this study focused on cases of smoke-related deaths from wildfires that were induced by climate change, revealing an astonishing increase in mortality rates.
Whereas the absolute number of deaths from wildfire smoke doubled from 46,401 annually in the 1960s to 98,748 in the 2010s, the number of deaths directly attributed to climate change-driven wildfires increased from 669 (1.2%) in the 1960s to 12,566 (12.8%) in the 2010s-a 19-fold increase.
Most noticeably, climate change fueled wildfires razed tropical rainforests, grasslands, North American temperate forests, Mediterranean forests in Europe, and boreal forests. Dr. Park emphasized that the findings point to the growing risk of climate change to public health because more and more fires are affecting areas with high population density.