Health impact from smoke rises with more intense wildfires

(Rick Egan | Tribune file photo) Smokey skies near Woodland Hills during the the Pole Creek fire in 2018. Tens of millions of people in the Western US face a growing health risk due to wildfires as more intense and frequent blazes churn out greater volumes of lung-damaging smoke, according to research scientists at NASA and several major universities. Billings, Mont. • Climate change in the Western U.S. means more intense and frequent wildfires churning out waves of smoke that scientists say will sweep across the continent to affect tens of millions of people and cause a spike in premature deaths.

That emerging reality is prompting people in cities and rural areas alike to prepare for…