In August 2023, the deadliest fires the U.S. had seen in a century tore through Lāhainā, Maui, devastating the town and taking the lives of between 100 and 102 people, according to an official death count at the time — and, as the planet warms and the climate changes, scientists expect wildfires to grow in number.
Now, two years after those tragic Lāhainā wildfires, researchers have taken a closer look at the true mortality rate associated with the disaster by examining “excess deaths” in the region. This is a measure of the number of deaths that exceeded what’s called the “baseline,” or the number of deaths to be expected in a given region from any cause, not just wildfires.
The team found that all-cause mortality increased by 67% during the month of the fires. This is a big deal because it suggests the true toll of the fire is much larger than what was captured in official counts. The study’s authors think the rise was largely due to indirect deaths not caused by the blaze itself, but rather factors like chronic health conditions being exacerbated or someone facing a disruption in their ability to access medical care.
The authors say their findings put a finer point on the need to find better emergency preparedness, access to medical care and ecological solutions to prevent future tragedies in communities as global warming, primarily driven by human activities like burning coal, continues to increase the severity of natural disasters. This is particularly true for Hawaii, where new developments and tourism demands on the land may have made it more vulnerable to wildfires.
“Native Hawaiians, for the centuries preceding colonization, had ways of stewarding the land so that there were built in mechanisms to mitigate climate crises and effects from potential wildfires,” Michelle Nakatsuka, co-author of the study and medical student at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told Space.com.
Her paper corroborates other recent research, which suggests the public health impact of the Maui fires are greater than what our health-tracking systems are able to initially catch. A separate study published in August in JAMA, for example, linked the Maui fires to lingering respiratory problems and mental health problems like depression. As natural disasters become more common, studying not just the direct mortality rate but a medical system’s ability to absorb an increased burden of non-fatal health effects becomes imperative.
Why ‘indirect’ death…
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