The health effects of wildfires are well known. Most people recognize that inhaling the smoke from fire comes with risks, but there’s more to it. With climate change raising temperatures in many areas, making them more susceptible to wildfires, understanding the surprising ways wildfires affect human health is more important than ever.
The most common causes of wildfires include natural events such as lightning strikes. However, wildfires are much larger and happen more frequently than they did 20 years ago, prompting the world to take a look at our actions and how they may contribute to this detrimental experience.
Respiratory Symptoms
The most common health impact from smoke is a temporary worsening of symptoms in people with lung disease, particularly asthma and other chronic lung conditions. Even if you don’t have a pre-existing lung condition, you may also experience coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, or chest tightness when exposed to smoke.
Cardiovascular Symptoms
Exposure to wildfire smoke is associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, and arrhythmias. These cardiovascular problems are caused by the release of toxic gases that can cause inflammation of the heart and blood vessels.
Burns and Trauma
You might not think of wildfire smoke as something that causes trauma, but this is one of the more direct ways wildfires affect human health. Trauma can result from several scenarios, including being caught in the fire or losing a home to the flames.
Burns occur when you fight the flames or accidentally get caught in them and need rescuing. Either way, burns can be deadly, and you must take precautions to act quickly.
Mental Health Effects
There are other surprising ways wildfires affect human health on top of problems resulting from inhaling smoke during a wildfire disaster. The damage done to a person’s psyche may last long after the smoke has cleared. The frequency of wildfires is increasing worldwide, and the impact of wildfires on mental health is an area of growing concern.
Reproductive and Immunological Disorders
Inflammation and stress are the two most significant signs that explain why smoke damages our health in so many different ways. You could think of these as a burn on your skin, but instead of affecting the surface, inflammation and stress can affect any organ or system.
Both reproductive hormones and immune responses rely upon delicate biochemical systems to function correctly. By causing these disruptions to those systems, inflammation can contribute to infertility, miscarriage, premature birth, or birth defects.
Social and Financial Disruption
Wildfire disasters are unfolding across the globe, each with its own set of economic and human health effects. The scale of these effects varies and can only be studied after the event. While some areas may soon be habitable again, others will struggle to recover economically or psychologically for years to come.
From burns and cardiovascular issues to mental health effects, wildfires significantly impact our planet and its inhabitants. Though sometimes caused by nature, most wildfires are preventable, and we must work hard to do just that.
