Wildfires, peat fires and controlled burns on farmlands kill 339,000 people worldwide each year, said a study released on Saturday that is the first to estimate a death toll for landscape fires.
Most of those deaths are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 157,000 people die as a result of being exposed to such fires annually, with southeast Asia ranking second with 110,000 deaths.
“I was surprised at our estimate being so high when you consider that the exposure to fire smoke is quite intermittent for most people,” said lead author Fay Johnston, of the University of Tasmania.
Photo: EPA
“Even in southeast Asia and Africa, [fire] is a seasonal phenomenon. It is not year round,” Johnston said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Vancouver where she presented her research.
The study, which Johnston said was the first of its kind to attempt to estimate a death toll from wildfires and landscape burns, was published on Saturday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Researchers looked at the number of deaths from all causes in areas that were exposed to heavy smoke and landscape fires between 1997 and 2006.
They used satellite data and chemical transport models to assess the health impacts of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers, a major byproduct of landscape fire smoke.
The number of deaths from wildfires came in far below the previously estimated global tolls for indoor air pollution at 2 million people a year and urban air pollution at 800,000.
However, the study authors said their findings indicated that “fire emissions are an important contributor to global mortality.”
The research also suggested a significant link between climate and fire mortality.
About twice as many people died during El Nino years when the surface ocean temperature rises in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean (averaging 532,000 deaths) as during cooler La Nina years (averaging 262,000 deaths).
Deaths could be reduced if people stopped burning tropical rainforests in order to harvest palm oil and other products, Johnston said.
However, fires will only get more severe in the future, according to Mike Flannigan, a professor at the University of Alberta and a government scientist with Natural Resources Canada, who has conducted research to model how severe fires will be by the years 2081 to 2090.
Using a variable he called “cumulative daily severity rating,” Flannigan’s projections show that fire activity is “increasing over most of the globe, particularly the northern hemisphere, by a factor of two to three.”
That means “significant increases” in fire activity should be expected by the end of this century as the globe gets warmer, he said.
“It is the extreme weather that drives fire activity and if we expect more extremes in the future, which we do, then it is only going to get worse,” Flannigan told reporters. “It is getting to the point where it is beyond our control.”
Already, between 350 million to 450 million hectares are burned every year in wildfires, covering an area about the size of India and costing billions of dollars to fight and contain.
“The risk to life and infrastructure is only going to increase under climate change because of a warming climate,” Flannigan said.
Firefighting methods such as aerial suppression may have to be abandoned because they will not work against hotter, more intense fires, he said.
“It is going to be incredibly difficult in the future to manage forest fires because the intensity of fires is going to be increasing and that changes the strategy of putting fires out,” he said.
Instead, people who live near wooded areas can expect more frequent evacuations and community builders should consider fire-resistant home materials and crafting better fire guards around communities, he said.
Governments may need to consider stronger measures in prevention, education, penalties and restricted fire zones, he said.
“We are going to see more fire in the future, that is the bottom line. A warmer world is going to see more fire,” Flannigan said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese