Limiting Global Warming Can Reduce U.S. Wildfire Smoke Related Deaths by Thousands Annually
Stony Brook-led study estimated the economic and social costs of wildfire smoke pollution in climate scenarios; findings published in PNAS
STONY BROOK, NY, March 2, 2026 – Using future climate scenarios based on wildfire damages in North America, scientists estimate that up to 10,000 or more lives may be saved annually in the United States if society is able to mitigate climate change by keeping the global mean surface temperature (GMST) at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial age (1850-1900) levels. Currently, the GMST is at 1.3 to 1.4 degrees C but is projected to reach 3 degrees C with the current direction of climate change. The findings are detailed in a paper published in PNAS.
Wildfires have significantly increased over the past decade in the U.S. and in many regions of North America. The resulting air pollution brings particulates and other air pollutants that are increasing the scope, damage, and health exposures to people from wildfires.
Despite its large potential for damage, climate-induced wildfire smoke is rarely incorporated into estimates of the societal costs of climate change. This research, however, attempts to do that by developing an integrated framework to estimate air pollution from climate-induced wildfire smoke fine particulate matter and the associated mortality damage in the U.S. across different trajectories of greenhouse gas emissions and GMST.
Credit: Unsplash (Polina Kuzovkova)
Developed by a national scientific team including lead author Minghao Qiu, PhD, a Core Faculty Member in the Program of Public Health, and Assistant Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University, the method also accounts for fire-vegetation feedbacks – the effects of fire history on future vegetation and fire risks – by empirically estimating the effects of past fires on future burn probability. Such feedback is often not included in the projection of wildfire smoke and thought to be one of the leading uncertainties in studying future wildfires and their societal impacts.
The team used 28 global climate models to generate more than 700 possible future scenarios.
“Under the 3 degrees C mark of current global warning projections, we estimate an annual smoke-related mortality in the U.S. of 64,000 deaths, which increases the estimated deaths related to wildfire-smoke that occurred during 2011-2020 by 60 percent,” summarizes Professor Qiu. “This is very dangerous trend, but lives can be saved if we are able to mitigate climate change by limiting our greenhouse gases emissions through various energy, transportation, and climate policies.”
Qiu further explains their framework shows that by limiting global warming to 2 degrees C would reduce smoke-related mortality by 14 percent, or close to 9,000 deaths annually, relative to the estimate around the 3 degree C mark. Additionally, if global warming could be limited to 1.5 degrees C, wildfire smoke-related mortality could reduce deaths by approximately 11,600 per year based on their model.
The economic impact of wildfires is also addressed in the paper. In the context of monetized mortality costs, the researchers write that “climate-induced wildfire smoke is estimated to generate health damages on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars annually when monetized using the values of mortality risk.”
Additionally, under the framework the team states that for every additional ton of carbon (CO2) emitted in 2025, which is a small amount in the atmosphere, they calculated a net present value of monetized damage of $11.2 per ton due to climate-induced wildfire smoke mortality in the U.S.
“By incorporating wildfire smoke damages into existing non-wildfire damage estimates increases the U.S. domestic cost of carbon by 74 percent, and thus sustainability increases the expected benefit of greenhouse gas mitigation in the U.S.” adds Qiu.
The study also examined the fire-feedback (meaning places that burned before are less likely to burn in future) aspect to future climate projections. In other words, how much forest will be left to burn in a future climate and how does that impact societal damages and health? In brief, the researchers determined that while important, the negative fire-feedback component is not strong enough to influence the overall projected increase in wildfires, smoke pollution, and human mortality.
To help initiate change toward more effective climate mitigation in the future, the authors write: “Given the magnitude of estimated damages, our results suggest a need to incorporate this [wildfire] channel into the climate impacts assessment tools used in policy evaluation. The sheer magnitude of smoke damage also suggests wildfire should be placed at a central location for US climate policy.”