Author: Hunter Bassler

Are wildland firefighters affected by Trump’s hiring freeze? Federal officials aren’t sure

Moments after being inaugurated, President Donald Trump ordered a hiring freeze throughout all federal agencies for the foreseeable future.

The freeze includes all federal agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the United States Forest Service (USFS), and the United States Department of the Interior (DOI), triggering worries among the nation’s wildland firefighters as record-breaking fires burn Los Angeles and just months before peak wildfire season begins. Many wildland firefighters who recently accepted job offers took to the internet to ask whether the offer will now be revoked.

“As part of this freeze, no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law,” Trump’s order said. “This freeze applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding.”

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released a memorandum to each executive department and agency head moments after Trump’s order. The memorandum offers some insight into the exemptions of Trump’s order, namely an exemption of seasonal employees.

“Appointment of seasonal employees and short-term temporary employees necessary to meet traditionally recurring seasonal workloads, provided that the agency informs its OMB Resource Management Office in writing in advance of its hiring plans,” the memorandum said.

While some assumed the seasonal employee exemption covered wildland firefighters, confusion arose when USDA sent out its own memo a day later that said no exceptions applied to the department.

“At this time, there are no exceptions to the hiring freeze with respect to the Department of Agriculture (USDA),” the USDA memo obtained by WildfireToday said. “Accordingly, effective immediately, agencies and offices are not authorized to extend an offer of employment to any person. Persons to whom an offer of employment has been extended, but acceptance has not been received, shall be contacted immediately and be informed that the offer has been revoked.”

WildfireToday asked the USFS for clarity on whether wildland firefighter positions were exempt. The service referred us to the following statement from a USDA spokesperson:

“USDA is reviewing all the Executive Orders signed by President Trump and expects to share guidance on implementing them to agencies and mission areas as soon as possible.”

WildfireToday has also requested clarification from DOI officials. The department has not responded to our request as of this article’s publication.

This isn’t the first time a federal-wide hiring freeze enacted by Trump caused mass confusion for wildland firefighters. He ordered a similar freeze in 2017 after he took office.

Then USDA Acting Deputy Secretary Michael Young, however, exempted several public safety-related positions from that freeze in 2017 weeks after it went into effect. Time will tell if the current administration enacts the same exemption.

“The (2017) exemption specifically allows the Forest Service to move forward with hiring wildland firefighting resources, such as individual firefighters and specialists,” reporting from the Flathead Beacon said. “Other positions that were exempt in the USDA decision include law enforcement and disaster preparedness-related personnel in multiple agencies, food inspectors and medical officers in the Food Safety and Inspection Service and cyber security personnel in multiple agencies.”

This is a developing situation. WildfireToday will share updated guidance once it is released by USDA officials.

LA’s wildfires may trigger global consequences for insurance industry

A series of wildfires in Los Angeles County have caused widespread devastation in California, including at least 24 deaths and the destruction of more than 12,000 homes and structures. Thousands of residents have been evacuated, and the danger isn’t over yet.

Some estimates have put the cost of the damage and economic loss at between A$400 billion and A$450 billion, of which only A$32 billion is insured.

This is a stark illustration of the insurance protection gap – the difference between insured and uninsured losses. As California rebuilds, it means the bill for uninsured losses will fall on the property owners themselves and public funds.

These catastrophic fires should ring alarm bells in Australia, where global ripple effects are likely to force up our own insurance premiums. Most importantly, we must grapple with and prepare for the grim prospect of our own similar disaster.

Uninsurable homes

California’s insurance protection gap has grown as the state experiences increasingly devastating wildfires year-on-year.

In response to growing risk, escalating insurance claims, and rising reinsurance and construction costs, at least a dozen of the largest property insurers, making up 80% of the Californian market, have withdrawn from offering wildfire coverage or have restricted new policies.

In March 2024, State Farm, the United States’ largest property insurer, announced it would not be renewing about 72,000 policies in selected California postcodes deemed too risky to insure for wildfire.

These included 1,626 homes in Pacific Palisades, the scene of one of the most damaging recent fires.

For insurers, it’s simply becoming too expensive to do business in California.

What are the other options?

This has led to surging demand for alternative protection options. One, the California FAIR Plan, is a state-legislated collaboration between insurers.

The FAIR plan exists to provide a wildfire policy for those who have had policies refused by other insurance companies. But it’s a deliberately “bare-bones” policy.

Homeowners who want cover for additional structures, for theft and liability, or for other perils need to buy an additional top-up.

Residential payouts are capped at US$3 million (A$4.8 million), leaving many people underinsured.

Demand for the California FAIR Plan has skyrocketed since 2019, up 164%.

This increased demand for protection and the billions of dollars in loss we’ve just seen have raised concerns these wildfires may bankrupt California’s insurer of last resort.

The insurance protection gap is not unique to California. Some 15% of Australian households already face extreme insurance stress – a situation in which it costs four weeks or more of pretax income to buy an insurance policy.

Insurance for insurers

Premiums in Australia may soar even higher after the LA wildfires. Here’s why.

To cover large-scale losses like the 2022 floods in Australia, insurance companies buy a reinsurance policy in the global market. Essentially, they take out their own large insurance policies to help pay out the mass claims after a disaster.

The cost of global reinsurance capital goes up around the world as risk rises, losses increase, and the costs of reconstruction rise. Reinsurance payments for wildfire in California will therefore create a ripple effect in all insurance markets.

The global reinsurance market isn’t the only thing likely to push premiums higher in Australia. There’s also our own climate uncertainty and increasing risk of disaster.

Future extreme weather and the losses it may cause are becoming harder to predict. Where uncertainty rises, so do premiums, as insurers and reinsurers increase their capital reserving for potential losses.

Alarmingly, California’s crisis is a reminder that wildfires are not just a problem in rural areas or on the fringes of cities. Furthermore, these losses can even occur in winter, not just during the “wildfire season”.

A timely warning

Australia may have been fortunate enough to avoid a catastrophic citywide fire so far. But the intensification of bushfire seasons could ultimately create a similar insurance crisis here.

We’ve had our own sobering warnings in the past.

The 2003 Canberra bushfires destroyed more than 500 homes in suburban areas. In 2021, the Wooroloo fire destroyed 86 homes on Perth’s northeastern fringe.

In 2019, the Gospers Mountain mega-blaze came dangerously close to advancing on Sydney’s urban heart. A timely southerly wind change held it back.

It pays to check your coverage

What are the implications of this disaster for Australian insurance policyholders? Are there any meaningful actions we can take?

First, insured Australians should check what their policy covers and what is excluded. Greater clarification over exclusions was recommended in a recent parliamentary inquiry into the 2022 floods.

Meanwhile, policyholders should review the terms and conditions in their product disclosure statement (PDS). If you’re unsure about what a particular policy covers, contact your insurer prior to renewal.

Beyond checking or upgrading coverage, Australians can take steps to make their homes more bushfire resilient.

Last year, the Resilient Building Council partnered with the federal government to launch a free app homeowners can use to assess their fire resilience and earn premium reductions from participating insurers by making improvements.

Above all, Australians need to be aware that under a changing climate, we may be more at risk from fire than we realise, even in our biggest cities.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UK unprepared for increasingly frequent wildfires, framework warns

On a hot July day in 2022, London firefighters had their busiest day since World War Two.

Multiple wildfires burned throughout the United Kingdom on July 19, the most destructive of which destroyed 40 properties in the village of Wennington near England’s capital. The firefighting conditions were “absolute hell,” in part due to the historic heatwave suffocating the region.

Before the 2022 fire outbreak, UK officials didn’t see wildfires as something that happened at home, despite a growing body of research signaling an increase in fire-weather days throughout the country in the near future. The nation currently has no entity responsible for governing wildfire risk reduction and the majority of residents have a fire-averse attitude akin to the United States’ pre-1971 no-burn policy.

The increasing frequency of wildfires gives local advocates both hope and anxiety about the future of disaster preparation within the UK. While the problem is becoming more obvious, continuing inaction has left some believing nothing tangible will happen until the nation experiences massive loss of life or property.

Victoria Amato was, in many ways, the perfect person to bridge the UK and US wildfire movement. The Britain native has been developing community wildfire protection plans in the US for the past 18 years with SWCA Environmental Consultants. A presentation to UK officials in the wake of the 2022 wildfires showed her how the nation needed to develop a resilience program soon.

“It quickly became evident that there’s so much of what we do here in the US that would translate to some of the needs that the UK is facing,” Amato told Wildfire Today. “We wanted to create a conduit for some of that information sharing.”

The UK Community Wildfire Resilience Framework for Property Protection became that conduit. The paper acts as an entry point for both officials and community residents on how, and why, to safeguard the nation’s infrastructure against wildfire using case studies from the US and Canada.

The researchers believed that focusing specifically on property protection would incentivize government officials to take the growing threat seriously. Local communities have largely been the only entities safeguarding against wildfire danger, with multiple rural areas establishing Fire Operation Groups (FOGs). However, the groups are largely comprised of multiple agencies and are guided by different priorities and objectives.

“We had to show the UK government that we were focused on something that will protect life and property, since that’s what’s going to get attention politically,” Amato said. “They could also point to data and show most that most wildfires in the UK are associated within those rural-urban interface areas, and that’s where they could actually get some traction.”

The in-depth nature of the framework provides numerous achievable actions officials can take now to protect communities. However, Amato said she and the other researchers she worked with believe they’ll face many hurdles before substantive changes are made, including too few economic and personnel resources, residential lack of engagement, code-adoption resistance, a lack of unified governance and messaging, and little relevant science and baseline data.

Despite the potential hurdles, Amato believes the framework’s best practices will act as a spark to further change.

“We presented it with the intent of introducing the paper (to wildfire stakeholders in the UK),” Amato said. “Now we need to get it out with a wider distribution.”

The UK Community Wildfire Resilience Framework was presented to the UK Wildfire Conference in Aberdeen, Scotland in November last year. Amato spoke to the framework with fellow authors Linda Kettley from Firewise UK and Fiona Newman Thacker from Wageningen University and Research.

Click here to read the full framework.

High-severity wildfires the ‘main risk’ to threatened Canada Lynx, researchers say

A now-rare forest carnivore faces numerous hurdles to continue living in its usual habitat, wildfire chiefly among them.

Canadian Lynx numbers have declined throughout most of their range in the United States, according to the Endangered Species Coalition. Causes for their decline include habitat loss, urbanization, and genetic isolation from populations in Canada due to the fragmentation of their environment.

Now, the remaining morsels of the species’ habitat is facing additional threats, straining the animals even further. A recent study used GPS data and scientific modeling to identify the remaining lynx habitat in the forests of western Colorado, southern Wyoming, and northern New Mexico, and considered over 40 habitat or environmental characteristics to identify the area’s biggest risks.

The maps found that lynx habitat in these areas is now sparse, patchy, and poorly connected, existing only in narrow bands due to Colorado’s complex mountainous terrain. Researchers also said that around one-third of the likely habitat overlapped with multiple disturbances between the study’s timeframe of 1990 and 2022, including forest insect outbreaks (31%), wildfires (5%), and forest management activities like tree harvest and prescribed burning (3%).

“Although fire disturbance from 1990-2022 overlapped only 5% of likely lynx habitat in this area, we believe that frequent, high-severity fire is the main risk to lynx in high-elevation forests moving forward,” Dr. John Squires, the study’s principal investigator and a Rocky Mountain Research Station research wildlife biologist, told Phys.org.

Researchers predicted wildfire would be a primary disturbance factor for the animal’s critical habitat. The 94,545-hectare Cameron Peak Fire, the 78,433-hectare East Troublesome Fire, and the 56,254-hectare Pine Gulch Fire, all burned lynx habitat during the 2020 fire season.

Despite the low overlap percentage the study eventually found, the scientists still considered wildfire to be the highest threat to lynx habitat, in part due to projected increasing trends in wildfire frequency and severity. Some fire threats have already demonstrated the fire vulnerability of lynx habitat.

“The West Fork Fire Complex…burned at high severity across 442 km² of the San Juan Mountains in 2013, impacting one of the most important patches of lynx habitat in the Southern Rockies,” the study said. “In general, lynx avoid fire-impacted landscapes for at least ~ 25 yrs, likely because stand-replacing fires of high severity that are common in subalpine systems reset much of the impacted area to a stand initiation stage.”

For example, fires in Washington’s North Cascades Ecosystem in 2o13 and 2020 burned an estimated 32% of lynx habitat and reduced the species’ carrying capacity between 66% and 73%, the researchers said. Ultimately, how much fires affect lynx landscape depends on the extent, frequency, and severity of the fires.

“Therefore, despite low current overlap, a central conservation issue for lynx and forest management in the Southern Rockies is how to “defend” Likely, in situ habitat from frequent fire disturbance with climate change,” the researchers said.

Click here to read the full study.

Historic Los Angeles wildfires are anything but ‘unprecedented’

The Palisades Fire may well turn out to be the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles history, even while today it remains uncontained and growing.

The wildfire was 0% contained and had destroyed more than 1,000 structures in and around the city’s Pacific Palisades Neighborhood less than 24 hours after igniting, officials confirmed at a press conference.

Whatever the cause of ignition, a combination of hurricane-force winds, drought, and an abundance of newly-grown vegetation that had quickly dried, created the perfect storm for rapid and destructive wildfire spread.

The Palisades Fire, and at least four other fires that ignited on the same day, were often called “unprecedented” by officials and the media, but they were anything but.

These fires may well be the most destructive for L.A., but are only considered unprecedented by those who have forgotten the past history of fire in the area – or forgotten the precedents of the Camp Fire of 2018 or the Australian Black Summer Fires of 2019-20 or Greece of 2023, and others.

The wildfire risks for these parts of L.A. have been well documented over many years, and a similar conflagration happened in the city less than two decades earlier. One of the most read articles on Wildfire Today this week – possibly mistakenly due to their similarities – is a round-up of the 2019 fires around L.A.

L.A.’s previous most-destructive wildlife was 2008’s Sayre Fire, which destroyed more than 600 homes in the city’s Sylmar Neighborhood, according to reporting from the Los Angeles Times. It spread at the same time as two other fires and left more than 20,000 acres burned.

The Sayre Fire’s destruction was largely driven by 50 to 80 mile-per-hour gusts from the Santa Ana Winds, a phenomenon the National Weather Service (NWS) said happens yearly from September through May. The extreme winds occur when a region of high pressure over the desert Southwest flows toward low pressure near the Californian coast, which drastically increases wildfire risk due to their speed and dryness.

The same hurricane-force winds fanned the Palisades Fire’s flames.

“A LIFE-THREATENING, DESTRUCTIVE, Widespread Windstorm is expected Tue afternoon-Weds morning across much of Ventura/LA Co,” NWS said a day before the wildfire started. “Stay indoors, away from windows, expect power outages….The strongest wind areas of LA and Ventura Counties will see widespread N-NE wind gusts of 50-80 mph, with isolated gusts up to 80-100 mph in the mountains and foothills.”

Drought and an abundance of dry vegetation also fueled both the Palisades Fire and the Sayre Fire, and many other not-so-record breaking wildfires of recent times.

The United States Forest Service reported the Sayre Fire consumed 95% of all vegetative cover across 5,500 acres of the Angeles National Forest right after California saw its driest 8-month stretch, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Similarly, Los Angeles has now experienced its second-driest period in almost 150 years of record keeping. Ample vegetation, which grew and thrived during record-breaking rain seasons in the city during 2023 and 2022, dried up and was ready to burn.

Apart from the “perfect storm” scenarios of the Palisades and Sayre, experts have known for decades that much of California’s land is dependent on fire.

Nearly 10 years ago, researchers concluded that weather (mostly the Santa Ana winds) and the spatial distribution of built property were the key determinants of risk in the southern California landscape: “adequate planning of the changes in the built environment…is going to be vital for managing risk from fire under future climates.”

Almost 20 years ago, experts drew on studies from the early 1970s on ways to specifically stop conflagrations from burning in Southern California, saying “Through strategic fuel management planning, we could influence the total number and size of the (conflagration) occurrences as well as their geographic distribution and thereby mitigate the impacts of too much of the ‘wrong kind of fire'”.

Wildfire Today will hold off on any deep dive into the causes of the current fires out of respect to all those still being impacted by active fires today.

Longer and more intense periods of wildfire weather are expected across the nation in the near future, especially, but not solely, in Southern California. Let’s take this “opportunity” to work out what we know, what we can learn, and what we need to do to make meaningful change.

After years of anxiety, U.S. wildland firefighter pay boost may finally become permanent in 2025

A grueling fight that forced wildland firefighters in the United States to become armchair legislative experts just entered its fourth year, with a light at the end of the tunnel being closer than ever.

A $20,000 retention bonus enacted by the Biden Administration in 2021 has subsequently caused a spike in fear and panic for wildland firefighters every few months. The bonus was only supplemental, as legislators intended to enact a permanent pay increase.

Years later, that pay increase has yet to become a reality. Each federal budget or continuing resolution passed since, including the most recent push filled with “political turmoil,” has almost resulted in a massive pay cut to the force as legislators nearly failed to extend the $20,000 bonus.

Wildland firefighters may soon be able to “step off the anxiety merry-go-round,” as Jonathon Golden with Grassroots Wildland Firefighters nonprofit puts it, as a permanent solution nears final passage.

The supplemental pay increase was most recently included in Congress’ Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2024 and will remain in place until Congress passes a budget for Fiscal Year 2025, which they are now four months late on and counting.

Versions of the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act (WFPPA), which would solidify the pay increase and guarantee other compensation improvements, are included in both the House Interior Appropriations bill and Senate Interior Appropriations bill for 2025 with bipartisan support.

“I feel comforted by the fact that House Republicans included the WFPPA in the House Interior Appropriations bill and that the Senate is there to match right alongside,” said Golden, who is the legislative director for the nonprofit. “My thought is that when we see a final Fiscal Year 2025 budget, we will also see some version of WFPPA that will make into law a higher pay for wildland firefighters.”

A new incoming Congress and presidential administration may extend and complicate the process. President-elect Donald Trump has twice threatened to withhold federal aid from wildland firefighters in California along the campaign trail.

Despite this, Golden sees the coming opportunity as the best shot wildland firefighters have of getting a livable wage. The United States Forest Service signaled a similar sentiment in a statement sent out on Dec. 31.

“There is strong bipartisan support in Congress to make this firefighter pay reform permanent,” the statement said. “Our team in Washington continues to engage with Congress as lawmakers consider a permanent solution. We are preparing for every possibility to ensure this critical reform is implemented as seamlessly as possible.”

“We’re closer, but we’re not there yet,” Golden told Wildfire Today.

Italian mafia linked to massive spike in wildfires, research finds

Italy has seen massive recent increases in both burned areas and the total number of fires, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

The nation had abnormally high numbers throughout its 2023, 2021, 2017, and 2007 wildfire seasons, EFFIS’ annual statistics show. The vast majority of fires and burned area between 2002 and 2023 happened in Sicily, around 77% of which were arson, and new research has uncovered a likely cause: the mafia.

Italian officials in both 2021 and 2023 believed the wildfires were intentionally set, according to a new paper from the University of California, Berkeley, published in the Criminology & Criminal Justice scientific journal. The mayor of Polizzi Generosa said the region was “under attack” in 2021, while Palermo’s mayor said the increase in fires suggested “malicious acts…of absolute wickedness.”

The trend has roots in the history of Southern Italy, according to the paper.

“The setting of intentional wildfire, incendio doloso, in Southern Italy has been tied to vendettas, land disputes, and protests, but recently the mafia has operationalized fire as an accumulation strategy and for territorial control,” the paper said. “Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have estimated that 80% of wildfires were concentrated in regions known to have a powerful mafia presence, while the Anti-Mafia Commission report completed in May 2022 concludes that the fires in Sicily show undeniably that the predatory actions of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra are a continued “condition of ‘power’ and ‘control’ in the territory which . . . go hand in hand with interests of an economic nature.”

The Sicilian Anti-Mafia Commission launched an investigation during 2021’s spike in fires, according to the paper. After 10 months of testimony from numerous officials, the commission concluded that the fires were often set for numerous profit-seeking reasons, including burning land owned by farmers who refused to sell their land to green energy projects.

Numerous fires were also reportedly set during heat waves in the same areas to overwhelm fire crews, who would be forced to choose which fires to put out and which would be left to burn. Another investigation was launched in the wake of 2023’s wildfires that burned on the hillsides surrounding Sicily’s capital city of Palermo, land considered desirable solar and wind installations, rather than rural, inland, and forested regions that were burned in 2021.

“The interviews, tours, conversations, and analysis cited in this work all point to something malicious afoot in the burned landscapes of Sicily,” the paper said. “While the perpetrators may never be caught, looking at Sicily’s perceived, conceived, and lived space—urban and rural—in history and today might help answer the question: What does setting land on fire offer to the power dynamics found in Sicily today, and does it point toward the next, future iteration of the Cosa Nostra?”

Click here to read the full paper.

Aerial firefighting company upgrades its US arsenal

An aerial firefighting company will soon introduce a new aircraft to the United States’ wildfire suppression arsenal as it begins upgrading a portion of its air tanker fleet.

Neptune Aviation Services, based in Missoula, Montana, recently announced it would begin partially transitioning its airtanker platform from BAe 146s to Airbus A319s. The transition is expected to be completed by 2027, with the company operating between 10 to 15 aircraft in its fleet, a mix of A319s and BAe 146s depending on the evolving aerial firefighting market.

The company is the first to convert A319 planes for aerial firefighting operations, the United States Forest Service (USFS) confirmed with WildfireToday. The aircraft can hold a minimum of 4,500 gallons of fire retardant, compared with the maximum 3,000 gallons that the BAe 146 could hold, along with a greater fuel capacity.

The A319’s retardant capacity rides the edge between large airtankers (LATs) and very large airtankers (VLATs) as characterized by USFS. LATs have historically only been able to deliver 2,000 to 4,000 gallons of retardant, while VLATs are capable of delivering over 8,000 gallons.

Credit: Julian Herzog via Wikimedia Commons

Airbus, the manufacturer of A319s, will reportedly provide comprehensive support for the lifecycle of the fleet to ensure long-term success. The company originally created the A319, part of the A320 aircraft family, in the mid-90s and paired it with the “fly-by-wire” (FBW) digital flying system, according to Airbus’ website. The then-revolutionary and now-standard system allowed a computer to control wing and tail functions to a pilot’s wishes.

A new and improved FBW system will reportedly accompany the converted planes entering Neptune’s fleet.

“The FBW system uses computers to process pilot inputs and then sends electrical signals to control the aircraft’s flight surfaces, ensuring the desired flight path,” the company said in a press release to WildfireToday. “These capabilities enhance safety, reliability, and maneuverability, while reducing weight by eliminating traditional cables, pulleys, and rods.”

fire aviation

More than 1.5 million people die annually from wildfire air pollution

Wildfire smoke is increasingly encroaching on urban and rural spaces throughout the world. Increasingly frequent wildfires in Siberia are projected to cause thousands of deaths and billions in costs for East Asia. Smoke temporarily covered all U.S. lakes between 2019 and 2021.

Researchers, however, know little about the global mortality burden related to smoke pollution. A new study published in The Lancet scientific journal sought to learn more about that burden.

Researchers found that 1.53 million deaths per year were attributable to wildfire-driven air pollution between 2000 and 2019, including 0.45 million deaths from cardiovascular issues and 0.22 million respiratory deaths. Particulate matter pollution contributed to 77.6% of deaths, while 22.4% of the deaths were attributed to surface ozone pollution.

Smoke Beaver Fire — Smoke at the Beaver Fire in Northern California. August 12, 2014. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

Researchers calculated particulate matter and surface ozone from wildfires across 59 countries between 2000 and 2019 and obtained relative risks for both the short-term and long-term impact of exposures to particulate matter and surface ozone on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality. The data was obtained from previously published meta-analyses on particulate matter and surface ozone and from the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2019 published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Over 90% of all attributable deaths were in low-income and middle-income regions. Sub-Saharan Africa had 606,769 deaths from wildfire smoke pollution, southeast Asia had 206,817 deaths, south Asia had 170,762 deaths, and east Asia had 147,291 deaths. The five countries with the largest death totals were China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

Deaths attributed to cardiovascular issues saw an annual increase of 1.67% per year between 2000 and 2019, the study said. Deaths attributed to respiratory issues did not have statistically significant trends. In 2019, the attributable mortality rates in low-income countries remained four times higher than those in high-income countries, though this had reduced from nine times in 2000.

Wildfire smoke directly increases dementia risk, study find

A study of more than 1.6 million people in California found a direct correlation between exposure to wildfire smoke and increased dementia risk.

The research, published in the JAMA Neurology scientific journal, used electronic health record data between January 2008 to December 2019 among members of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California system, which serves 4.7 million people in the state. The study focused on people aged 60 years old or older but excluded people who had a dementia diagnosis before cohort entry.

The study found that people exposed to fine particulate matter PM_2.5from wildfires had an 18% increase in the odds of a dementia diagnosis, compared with an only 1% increase in people exposed to non-wildfire PM_2.5. The most at-risk subjects were less than 75 years old, were from racially minoritized subgroups, and those living in high-poverty census tracts.

“As the climate changes, interventions focused on reducing wildfire PM_2.5 exposure may reduce dementia diagnoses and related inequities,” the researchers said.

s2t airtanker holy fire — An S-2T air tanker comes out of the smoke to drop retardant near the communication towers on Santiago Peak in Southern California August 8, 2018 as the Holy Fire approaches. HPWREN image.

It’s not the first time wildfire smoke has been linked to neurological hazards. University of New Mexico Health Sciences researchers published a study in 2021 that found people inhaled microscopic particles from woodsmoke which worked their way into the bloodstream and reached the brain. The particles put people at risk for neurological problems ranging from premature aging and various forms of dementia to depression and even psychosis.

READ MORE: Researchers find that wildfire smoke poses neurological hazards

“Past research has consistently identified an association between long-term PM_2.5 exposure and incident dementia, with varying magnitudes of association depending on study context, outcome ascertainment, and exposure averaging period,” researchers from the JAMA study said. “These results align with prior research consistently demonstrating that individual-level and area-level social determinants compound the risk of adverse health outcomes associated with climate-driven environmental exposures.”

Examples of how socioeconomic inequalities can exacerbate health issues from wildfire smoke include lower-quality housing increasing smoke infiltration and lack of air filtration systems to improve air quality during extreme smoke events.

“Future studies may wish to explicitly study these factors as effect modifiers,” the researchers said.