New study: more than 1.5 million die each year from wild/bush fire pollution

In this 20-year period, about 25.54 lakh deaths in India could be attributed to respiratory or cardiovascular diseases caused by air pollution induced by these kinds of fires, the study said. China had the largest number of such casualties during this period, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Indonesia and Nigeria.

Globally, more than 1.53 million deaths could be attributable to such landscape fire incidents, the study said.

The study, led by Yuming Guo, head of Climate, Air Quality Research (CARE) unit, School of Public health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University, Melbourne, shows for the first time the actual health risks from wild/bush fires, particularly from the PM2.5 matter released during the process.

“The flames and heat from landscape fires can kill people near the fire areas, with 221 direct deaths reported globally in 2018. However, the health risks from landscape fires are much greater, as landscape fire–sourced (LFS) air pollution (particularly fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2·5 μm or less [PM2·5] and ozone) often travels hundreds and even thousands of kilometres away and affects much larger populations than the flames and heat do,“ Guo said in the study.

He pointed out that at least 90 per cent of global landscape fire emissions of PM2.5 are likely to be contributed by wildfires, and this proportion may increase with climate change. The study found geographic and socio-economic differences in mortality and a global trend of increasing cardiovascular deaths due to fire pollution.

“Our study is the largest and most comprehensive assessment to date of the health risks associated with air pollution from landscape fires. It found an increasing number of global cardiovascular deaths associated with this pollution with approximately 450,000 deaths per year attributed to cardiovascular disease, and 220,000 deaths attributable to respiratory disease,” he said.

Prakash Doraiswamy, Director, Air Quality, at World Resources Institute, India, said that large scale burning events such as the forest fires or agricultural fires contribute to the larger air quality problem at both local and regional scales.

“Such fire events generate significant emissions of smoke that contain black carbon and other fine particles that impact health, air quality and climate. Fine particles have been linked to multiple health effects such as respiratory and cardiovascular impacts. Given the magnitude of large-scale fire events, air quality impacts are observed 100s of kilometres downwind. Black carbon is a product of incomplete combustion and has a high global warming potential leading to long-term climate impacts. There is also a feedback loop with climate change resulting in disruptions of weather patterns and ecosystem impacts,” Doraiswamy said.

As preventive measures, volunteers from forested villagers are appointed as fire watchers, N R Praveen, Chief Conservator of Forests, Pune circle said.

“About 20 percent of Maharashtra’s geographical area is forest land. Barring 2019 which saw extremely good rains that led to few fire incidents, annually there are a minimum of 1,000 fire incidents. It starts at the farms where the most inexpensive way of disposing farm waste is to burn them. This is not healthy and often spreads from agricultural land to the adjoining forest land. Hence awareness activities are stepped up at the onset of winter,” he said.

Deaths caused by wild/bush fire were four times higher in low-income countries than high-income countries, the study said.

Lower socio-economic countries were more likely to have higher deaths from respiratory illness caused by fires than higher socio-economic countries. The global cardiovascular deaths due to fire pollution increased by an average 1.67 per cent per year.

Professor Guo said in the report that the global health burden due to pollution from fire “will increase because of the increase in frequency and severity of fires in a warming climate.”