Science Source

K. Moeltnera, M.-K. Kimb, E. Zhu, W. Yangd

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

Published date November 1, 2013

Wildfire smoke and health impacts: A closer look at fire attributes and their marginal effects

Examines the impact of basic fire attributes, such as distance and fuel type, on air quality and health outcomes
Uses detailed information on 24 large-scale wildfires that sent smoke plumes to the Reno/Sparks area of Northern Nevada over a 4-year period
Relates the daily acreage burned by these fires to daily data on air pollutants and local hospital admissions
Computes the per-acre health cost of wildfires of different attributes using information on medical expenses
Finds that patient counts can be causally linked to fires as far as 200–300 miles from the impact area
Finds that, as expected, the marginal impact per acre burned generally diminishes with distance and for fires with lighter fuel loads
Results highlight the importance of allowing for temporal lags between fire occurrence and pollutant levels