California wildfire pollution killed 52,000 in a decade: study

LOS ANGELES: Pollution from California wildfires killed more than 52,000 people in a decade, a new study claimed on Friday, as the western United States girds for a hot summer that could bring more blazes.

Vast areas of forest and grassland are scorched every year in California and other parts of the country, causing millions of dollars of destruction and sometimes costing lives.

But researchers say particulate matter released by the fires has a devastating effect on local populations that far outweighs the number of deaths directly attributable to them.

A study led by Rachel Connolly of the University of California Los Angeles found these tiny airborne pollutants -- known as PM2.5 because they are 2.5 micrometers or less -- are killing large numbers of people.

The team looked at data from 2008 to 2018 and isolated the amount of PM2.5 released specifically by wildfires, as opposed to that generated by other sources, like transport and manufacturing.

“The importance of wildfire management will only grow in the coming decades as aridification intensifies with climate change and more regions are susceptible to fires,” the researchers wrote in their paper, published Friday by Science Advances, a peer-reviewed journal of The American Association for the Advancement of Science.