Air Quality and Health: The Cost of Wildfire Smoke Damage

The economic toll of fires is growing as climate change fuels larger and more intense wildfires in the Western U.S. and Canada. Eight of the top ten most destructive wildfires in U.S. history, in terms of insured property losses, have occurred since 2017.

The past several weeks have brought news that State Farm will join Allstate in ceasing to write new home and commercial insurance policies in California, partially in response to wildfire risk in the state.

But scientists have produced mounting evidence over the past several years that wildfires’ direct impact on homes and businesses is only part of the story. In a study of fires in California in 2018, the costs of smoke impacts, valued based on measures used by the EPA for benefit-cost analyses, outweighed direct property damages.