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This story originally appeared in High Country News and is part of Climatic desk collaboration.
The more researchers learn about wildfire smoke, the more worrying the picture becomes. Smoke contains microscopic particles known as MP 2.5 because PM (particles) measure 2.5 microns or smaller, small enough to easily reach our lungs and then our bloodstream. Researchers have already linked wildfire smoke particles to increased risk from strokes, heart disease, respiratory diseases, lung cancer and other serious conditions.
And the harmful effects don’t end there. 2024 was a banner year for research into wildfire smoke and its impact on health, from brain function to fertility. While there is still much to learn, wildfire smoke is believed to be especially insidious compared to other sources of air pollution; Its smaller particle size, intermittent peaks and higher concentration of inflammatory compounds make it more dangerous.
This year’s new findings are disturbing. But the more we learn about smoke, the better we can protect ourselves from it, whether we live hundreds of miles from a fire or face it directly like wildland firefighters do. Research underscores the need for some changes, including better indoor air filtration systems in our homes, hospitals, schoolsand nursing homesand clean air centers for people who have no other place to breathe healthy air. Meanwhile, respirators The federal government is currently testing measures for wildland firefighters. We must also reduce smoke pollution at its source by taking measures to reduce the risk and intensity of wildfires, such as prescribed burning.
Here are some of the biggest advances in scientists’ understanding of wildfire smoke in 2024:
New estimates predict that 125 million Americans will face polluted air due to wildfires by 2054
Smoke from forest fires has erased improvements in air quality in recent years, a trend that is expected to continue. Millions more people will be exposed to polluted air in the coming years, according to models published by the First Street Foundation in February. It is estimated that by 2054, more than 125 million Americans each year will be exposed to “red” air quality, considered a unhealthy Environmental Protection Agency level: a 50 percent increase from 2024. California’s Central Valley will suffer the worst, with Fresno and Tulare County likely facing three months a year of unhealthy air, according to the study.
Smoke can hinder fertility treatments
Fires that started over Labor Day weekend 2020 covered Oregon with some of the worse air quality in the world at that time. Those 10 days or so of smoky air affected everyone, especially patients undergoing in vitro fertilization, or IVF, treatments. Researchers at Oregon Health and Science University studied 69 patients who received ovarian stimulation and IVF treatment in the six weeks after the wildfires. His study, published in the journal Fertility and sterility In May, found that patients exposed to wildfire smoke produced fewer blastocysts (clumps of cells that can develop into embryos) than those who were not exposed. Most patients still became pregnant, but the study’s lead author said she is concerned about how smoke may affect fertility treatments. she told him Sunshine of the capital of Idaho As an added precaution, fertility providers may want to delay IVF or embryo transfer for higher-risk patients during times of poor air quality.
Wildfire smoke is killing people prematurely
Thousands more people have died from wildfire smoke than previously thought, according to a study from the University of California, Los Angeles. New investigation A study published in the journal Science Advances in June found that fine particles in smoke caused between 52,500 and 55,700 premature deaths between 2008 and 2018 in California. According to its authors, this is the first long-term study to evaluate deaths caused by years of increasing exposure to wildfire smoke in a state that, like other Western states, is experiencing more frequent and severe wildfires.
Smoke Exposure Is Bad for Teens’ Mental Health
Researchers of the University of Colorado at Boulder found that wildfire smoke increases the risk of mental health problems in adolescents. He studypublished in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in September, analyzed data from 10,000 preteens who participated in the largest long-term study of brain development and childhood health in the United States, according to the university. Each additional day that children were exposed to “unsafe” air quality readings in 2016 increased the likelihood that they would experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, even up to a year later.
Years of firefighting could cause neurodegenerative diseases
Laboratory rats are not people, of course. But in a controlled environment, they can offer useful information about the consequences for human health. Researchers who exposed mice to an amount of smoke equivalent to what a wildland firefighter would breathe over a 15- to 30-year career found They were more likely to develop brain diseases than mice that were not exposed. The animals’ gene profiles fit a pattern that suggests long-term damage similar to the effects of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. While researchers can’t prove that smoke is the direct cause of the increased disease risk, said lead author Adam Schuller Boise State Public Radio that wildland firefighters must be aware of the impact that a long career in firefighting can have on the human brain.
Wildfire Smoke Linked to Dementia
Inhaling particles in air pollution has already been linked to an increased risk of dementia. Now, researchers say, wildfire smoke may pose an even greater risk than other sources of pollution. Analysis of more than 1.2 million people in Southern California found That exposure to wildfire smoke over a long period of time (three years, in this study) was associated with an increased risk of a dementia diagnosis. According to the study, published in the journal JAMA Neurology, the odds of a dementia diagnosis increased by 18 percent for every microgram per cubic meter increase in wildfire pollution over three years, a relatively small amount. For comparisonThe average exposure to PM 2.5 for a census tract near the 2018 Camp Fire in California was 1.2 micrograms per cubic meter between 2006 and 2020, increasing to an exposure of 310 micrograms per cubic meter during the actual fire.