Blowing Smoke: Health Impacts of Wildfire Plume Dynamics

Long-range transport of wildfire smoke affects air quality on a broad geographic and temporal scale. Using a novel satellite-based dataset that allows us to observe daily smoke plume coverage for almost every location in the U.S. from 2006 to 2013, we find that transport of wildfire smoke generates frequent and significant variations in air pollution, especially fine particulate matter, for cities hundreds of miles away from the fire itself. We link this variation to Medicare administrative data to provide the first national scale evaluation of the health cost of wildfire pollution among the U.S. elderly. We show that wildfire smoke exposure poses a significant mortality risk for the elderly. The effect concentrates among individuals who live in areas with generally low background levels of air pollution. We find strong and consistent evidence that smoke exposure also increases healthcare use and spending.