What is the economic cost of wildfire smoke?

The paper drew on satellite imagery of wildfire smoke, air quality records and labour market data in the U.S.One of the things that really surprised me about wildfire smoke is that in the United States, the geography of wildfire smoke is very different from the geography of fires, said Molitor. Shuai Pan, the lead author, had previously looked at the effects of pollution from the transportation sector, but became interested in the consequences of wildfire smoke while doing his doctoral work in the U.S.Epidemiological research suggests exposure to wildfire smoke is associated with increased mortality and certain common respiratory diseases, Pan said. Those numbers would be far higher if the research had drawn on this summer's smoky air, Pan said. In the midst of Canada's record wildfire season this year, Dave Sawyer, an environmental economist at the Climate Institute of Canada, tried to calculate (new window) the health cost of smoke in this country. Sawyer said the economic toll of wildfire smoke is yet another reason to act on climate change.