Wildfires and heatwaves threaten air quality and health, UN says

Wildfires and heatwaves are creating a growing air-quality threat, with microscopic pollution from fires undermining efforts to protect public health and ecosystems, the World Meteorological Organization said.

The UN weather and climate agency linked the problem to climate change, which scientists say is making heatwaves and wildfires more frequent and intense. Although regulations have reduced industrial and transport emissions of fine PM2.5 particles in Europe and North America, exposure to fire-related PM2.5 has increased.

PM2.5 consists of particles and droplets smaller than 2.5 micrometres. They can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. Wildfires are among several sources, alongside fossil-fuel industrial activity, farming, domestic heating, transport and dust storms.

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Air quality and climate change can’t be dealt with separately. If one worsens, the other does too.

“Air quality and climate change can’t be dealt with separately. If one worsens, the other does too,” Lorenzo Labrador of the WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch network told AFP. He said powerful forest fires produce large amounts of fine-particle pollution, and that particles from burning vegetation are “much more toxic” than those from other sources, including car exhaust.

Smoke can harm people and wildlife far from the fire because winds carry the particles. The WMO said conventional models based on total PM2.5 concentrations may underestimate deaths attributable to wildfires by up to 93%. A study cited in its bulletin found that extreme fire-smoke events have tripled globally since the 1990s and contributed to nearly 100,000 additional deaths each year from 2010 to 2018, though the figure may be an underestimate.

The WMO also called for better monitoring of aerosols, including black carbon and microplastics, fine particles and ground-level ozone. Ozone accumulates when temperatures rise, air stagnates and sunlight is intense. The agency said coordinated climate and air-quality policies are needed because the two problems cannot be addressed separately.

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Much more toxic