Wildfire Smoke Will Likely Kill Thousands More Americans Each Year A new analysis finds that 30,000 more Americans are expected to die from wildfire-smoke exposure annually by 2050 Sara Hashemi - Daily Correspondent September 19, 2025 1:13 p.m. The annual average concentration of PM 2.5 expected in 2050.  Stanford University As our planet continues to warm, the number of Americans who die each year from wildfire smoke could rise from 40,000 today to 71,000 in 2050, finds a recent study. Scientists usually focus on PM 2.5—particulate matter that measures 2.5 microns across and can penetrate the lungs and bloodstream—to track air quality. While there have been studies on the effects of PM 2.5, most of them haven’t focused on wildfire smoke exposure. This new work provides a sobering look at just how many lives will be impacted by wildfires in the coming decades. The analysis, published in the journal Nature on Thursday, combined two decades of death records with climate and wildfire data across North America. The researchers used a machine learning model to predict how changes in wildfire emissions in one place affected smoke concentrations in another. They found that when smoke exposure was higher, there were more deaths. “This paper is a wake-up call for people,” says Kai Chen, an environmental epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health who was not involved in the study, to Sachi Kitajima Mulkey and Harry Stevens at the New York Times. “It shows this is a nationwide problem, and it’s tied to climate change.” Quick fact: The state of wildfires Over the past 20 years, the frequency and intensity of extreme wildfires around the globe have more than doubled, according a study in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution published in June 2024. Some states will be impacted more heavily than others. The largest projected increases in death are in California and New York, with 5,060 additional deaths and 1,810 additional deaths a year, respectively. Washington, Texas and Pennsylvania will also see significantly more deaths compared to other states. The study also measures the economic impacts of smoke-related deaths, and found that they translate to $608 billion in annual damages by 2050. That exceeds costs from all other climate-driven damages in the United States, combined. A separate study, also published in Nature this week, further highlights the devastating impact of wildfire smoke not just in the United States, but around the world. The researchers estimate that 1.4 million people will die from wildfire smoke around the world each year by the end of the century—six times more than the current death toll—and most of those deaths will occur in Africa. The authors of the first paper stress that these numbers depend on how we respond to climate change. The models don’t consider worsening climate scenarios, but they also don’t consider possible adaptations. Marshall Burke, an environmental economist at Stanford University and study co-author, tells the New York Times that encouraging the use of air filters and masks during smoke events could also lead to improvements. “The numbers are really striking, but those don’t need to be inevitable,” Minghao Qiu, an environmental scientist at Stony Brook University and the paper’s lead author, tells Matt Simon at Grist. “There are a lot of things we could do to reduce this number.” Burke tells Oliver Milman at the Guardian, “If we want to reduce impacts in the next 30 years, mitigation is important, but it’s actually not the key lever." He adds, “The two key levers are reducing extreme wildfire activity through other approaches, so fuels management, and second, making sure we are well protected when smoke events happen. Right now we are not very well protected.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

A new analysis finds that 30,000 more Americans are expected to die from wildfire-smoke exposure annually by 2050