With Seattle’s first snow of the year just melting, preparing for wildfire season might not be top of mind. But Australia’s catastrophic wildfires underline how Washington’s wildfire and smoke season will get longer and burn more intensely with climate change — last year, fires started in March.
Local scientists are just discovering the deadly implications of immediate exposure to smoke across the state.
A new study into wildfire smoke’s impacts on mortality, conducted by researchers from the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and the Washington State Departments of Ecology and Health, shows that smoke has measurable lethal impacts on the state’s collective health. The study was published in the journal Environmental Health.