Study: Wildfire smoke could drive tens of thousands of deaths each year by 2050

• Under the worst climate scenarios, wildfire smoke could cause more than 70,000 excess deaths per year by 2050, per the study.
• "The impacts are much larger than anything else that has been measured," Marshall Burke, an environmental economist at Stanford University who contributed to the study, told the New York Times.

What they did: The research team used 20 years' worth of death records, satellite and ground data and climate models to study the relationship between exposure to wildfire smoke and mortality.

Zoom in: Oregon alone could see up to 831 excess deaths per year by midcentury, according to the research.

• This year's wildfire season in Oregon has been mild, but Portland is no stranger to smoke inundation.
• During the 2020 Labor Day fires, the air quality index in the Rose City was among the worst in the world.

What they're saying: "Our research suggests that the health impacts of climate-driven wildfire smoke could be among the most important and costly consequences of a warming climate in the U.S.," the study's authors wrote.

Yes, but: There are several ways to mitigate the health impacts of wildfire smoke.

• Better forest management could help reduce the severity of wildfires.
• Air filters and protective masks can help shield people from wildfire smoke.
• Cutting climate pollution can lower the risk of large, deadly fires.

The bottom line: "These are projections. They are not what's going to happen, necessarily," Burke told the New York Times.

• "But what happens is a choice, and so these don't have to be an inevitability."