Wildfire pollutants may have caused dozens of premature deaths in Houston area, researchers report

Houston may have suffered 65 premature deaths and nearly $600 million of economic losses per year due to air pollution from wildfire smoke, according to a study published in Science of The Total Environment.

Dr. Yunsoo Choi is associate professor at the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Houston and one of the researchers in the study. He said that his group found that between 2012 and 2014, wildfires caused around 4,000 premature deaths and somewhere between $36 billion and $82 billion in economic losses in the U.S. He believes that the economic losses could be even more severe.

The study did not consider the potential costs of hospitalization, emergency visits, time taken off work and any of the other economic impacts outside of premature deaths. “[If] we consider all these things then probably the economic losses [are] even larger than this number,” Dr. Choi said.

The investigation quantified the premature mortality and economic loss from wildfire-induced pollutants in the contiguous U.S., and analyzed the affect that a pollutant released from wildfires called particulate matter 2.5 had across the U.S.

Particulate matter 2.5, also known as pm2.5, is an inhalable particle or droplet that is 2.5 microns or smaller. For example, a red blood cell is between 2 and 2.5 microns thick. Pm2.5 can get into a person’s bloodstream and could lead to health complications. According to Dr. Choi, pm2.5 most heavily impacts the youth, the elderly and those with heart and respiratory conditions.

The group estimated the amount of pm2.5 emitted from wildfires across the continental U.S. between 2012 and 2014. They then compared the change in pm2.5 emissions to the change in premature mortalities from pm2.5 in those areas to find the impact of wildfire smoke.

Despite Houston ranking sixth nationally in premature deaths and economic impact, Dr. Choi said that Houstonians are “lucky” to live where they do. “Houston is humid… near the Gulf of Mexico… that’s why we don’t have that much active wildfire.”

Dr. Choi says that the damage in Houston was likely due to the smoke from other areas carrying over, similar to how the Northeastern U.S. was impacted by the fires in Canada.

Dr. Choi believes that with rising temperatures, wildfires could worsen. “[as] the climate changes… temperatures increase…then [wildfires] are going to have [a] more severe impact in the future,” he said. “[We] could have… another wildfire in Texas too.”

Dr. Inyang Uwak, research and policy director at Air Alliance Houston, agrees.

“Definitely, climate change plays a significant role in the causation of wildfires,” Dr. Uwak said. “Wildfire season used to be about four months of the year, now it’s expanding to seven months out of the year.”

However, wildfires aren’t the only causes of pm2.5 in the Houston area. “[We’re] surrounded by major highways… as well as numerous industry sources such as concrete batch plants and refineries, which will emit pm2.5,” Dr. Uwak said.

Dr. Uwak wants people to protect themselves from air pollution.

“I would advise Houstonians to definitely monitor the air quality… If you can’t stay indoors, then experts… recommend using a facemask, possibly a well-fitting N95,” she said. “PM 2.5 is very hazardous to health, human health.”

The research was a collaboration between several universities including the University of Houston, Cornell University, Nanjing University of Information Science. It also included the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Ambri, Inc.; Pusan National University in Korea and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.