‘I couldn’t breathe’: the deadly health burden of wildfire smoke

A Guardian investigation examines the growing health burden of wildfire smoke, which scientists say can kill people who never see a fire. The smoke carries toxic gases that inflame airways and fine particles small enough to reach deep into the lungs and travel through the bloodstream to other organs, and this year’s blazes have again pushed record pollution across major cities.

Researchers are still untangling how exposure translates into deaths. A study in Nature estimated that Canada's 2023 wildfires caused about 82,000 premature deaths, with a large share of the toll falling far from the flames, and experts cited in the report say the lack of long-term studies specific to wildfire smoke makes the full picture hard to measure.

What to watch now is how this fire season’s exposure affects hospital admissions and mortality, especially for older adults with respiratory or heart conditions, and whether the accumulating evidence pushes public-health officials to treat wildfire smoke as a more serious and more routine hazard.