Smoke from local wildfires can affect the health of Colorado residents, in addition to smoke from fires in forests as far away as California and the Pacific Northwest.
Researchers at Colorado State University, curious about the health effects from smoke from large wildfires across the Western United States, analyzed six years of hospitalization data and death records for the cities along the Front Range, which reaches deep into central Colorado from southern Wyoming.
They found that wildfire smoke was associated with increased hospitalizations for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and some cardiovascular health outcomes. They also discovered that wildfire smoke was associated with deaths from asthma and cardiovascular disease, but that there was a difference in the effects of smoke from local fires and that from distant ones.
Long-range smoke was associated with expected increases in hospitalizations and increased risk of death from cardiovascular outcomes.
Read more at: Colorado State University
The Cameron Peak and East Troublesome wildfires leave a heavy smoke plume over Fort Collins in Oct. 2020. (Photo Credit: Colorado State University Photography)