They kill over one and a half million people a year. In a non-obvious way

Fires in forests and other green areas are becoming an increasingly common phenomenon around the world. The raging fire most severely affects local communities, which often lose everything in the flames. However, according to research published in The Lancet, the fires may also affect hundreds of thousands of people living far from areas struggling with raging flames.

An international team of researchers analyzed data from 2000 to 2019 on “landscape fires”, both wild and controlled. In total, information was collected on 2,267 communities from 59 countries and territories. These were compared with statistics on mortality, population age and socioeconomic conditions. On this basis, scientists used standard algorithms to calculate how many deaths per year were related to emissions from wildfires.

According to the study, a total of 1.53 million deaths per year were linked to air pollution from landscape fires. About 450,000 cases were due to pollution-related cardiovascular diseases, and 220 deaths were due to respiratory diseases.

Researchers noted that more than 90 percent of deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, with almost 40 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa. The countries with the highest number of fire-related pollution deaths included China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia and Nigeria.

The authors of the study emphasized that “urgent action” is necessary to reduce mortality related to the effects of fires. They added that the disparity between rich and poor nations highlights climate injustice, in which those who have contributed least to global warming suffer the most from it.

Scientists have pointed out that some ways to avoid wildfire smoke – moving away from the area, using air purifiers and masks, or staying indoors – are not available to people in poorer countries. They appealed for financial and technological support for people in the countries most affected by the fires.