On all accounts, the January fire that destroyed thousands of homes and killed 31 people in Los Angeles County was the most devastating in the region’s history.
However, new research argues that the Eton and Palisade fires may have been far more fatal than what is reflected in the coroner’s report.
A research letter published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. The county estimates that between January 5th and February 1st, 440 deaths have been experienced more than normally expected. This is the period that began a few days before the fire exploded. He said that many deaths likely reflect health effects such as increased exposure to poor air quality or delays and disruptions in health services due to fires.
The immediate effects of wildfires and other climate-driven disasters are clearly evident in hard hit communities, but prolonged outcomes can be difficult to quantify. After the flames disappear, toxic smoke exposure and environmental damage caused by wildfires can remain for months, or even years.
“These are the mortality demographics that have been co-authored by the research,” said Andrew Stokes, an associate professor at Boston University and a mortality demographic who co-authored the research paper. “This study highlights the need for these types of modeling efforts to actually capture the true burden of these disasters.”
To generate findings, the study authors compared deaths recorded in Los Angeles County from January 5th to February 1st with deaths tallied over the same period in 2018, 2019 and 2024 (excluding exclusions where patients between 2020 and 2023 were significantly higher due to COVID).
According to their model, 6,371 deaths were recorded over the nearly one month period during the fire, compared to the expected 5,931 deaths based on data from the past few years.
Official deaths often depend on easily identifiable causes, such as burns and smoke inhalation. However, these numbers may not capture the complete sacrifice of a natural disaster.
According to county medical inspectors, 19 people were killed in the Eton fire and 12 people died in the Palisade fire. Many who eventually died were found in the remains of their destroyed property.
However, the study argues that actual deaths caused by fires are more than 14 times the official count.
“The difference is phenomenal,” Stokes said.
Heat waves, hurricanes and other disasters are the subject of similar research, but wildfires can be difficult to study when erupts in sparsely populated areas of rural areas. The Pallisard and Eaton fires “are one of the most densely populated regions in the country, so it was possible to use national death statistics to establish a reliable baseline trend to estimate excess deaths,” Stokes said.
“What we did here would be almost impossible to do due to camp fires and other wildfires that have occurred in the more rural parts of the country,” he said.
Still, Stokes points out that the study is not a complete picture of its effectiveness. Firefighters and other first responses, together with residents, both inside and outside the fire zone, can face future health issues caused by exposure to smoke and ashes.
Fire-related hospital visits for smoke exposure jumped significantly across Los Angeles County during the January flames, according to the Department of Public Health. However, wildfire smoke can drift hundreds of miles, and the number of specific deaths and hospitalizations associated with exposure are often not well known until months to years after a natural disaster.
A study published last year by UCLA Ruskin Center for Innovation found an estimated 55,000 early deaths in the 11 years since inhaling particulate matter known as PM2.5 or SOOT from a wildfire.
“What we did here is what we call a quick assessment of LA’s wildfire mortality,” Stokes said. “And we’re focusing only on the acute phase of wildfires burning in Los Angeles. But we hope there’s more research to assess the long tails of these wildfires.”
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