Monash University: More than 1.5 million die each year from wild/bush fire pollution

Landscape fires are an increasing environmental and health threat fuelled by climate change. While 221 direct deaths were reported globally in 2018, a study published in The Lancet reveals more than 1.5 million people died globally from illnesses caused by exposure to pollution from wild/bush fires.

The study, led by Professor Yuming Guo, from Monash University is the largest and most comprehensive study of the global, regional and national mortality burden attributable to air pollution caused by wild/bush fires.

Importantly the study found geographic and socio-economic differences in mortality and a global trend of increasing cardiovascular deaths due to fire pollution.

Of the 1.53 million deaths annually directly attributable to landscape fire pollution the researchers found:

450,000 cardiovascular deaths
220,000 million respiratory deaths
Sub-Saharan Africa had the largest burden, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of global deaths
Southeast Asia, East Asia and Eastern Europe bore the largest cardiovascular deaths.
Over 90 per cent of wild/bush fires attributable deaths were in low- and middle-income countries led by China, India, Congo, Indonesia and Nigeria.
Eastern Europe had the highest cardiovascular deaths caused by wild/bush
Deaths caused by wild/bush fire were four times higher in low-income countries than high-income countries
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