The wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles earlier this year — burning entire neighborhoods to the ground, straining firefighting resources and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes — may have led to hundreds more deaths than were recorded, a new study suggests.
While officials reported that the Palisades and Eaton fires directly killed at least 30 people when they incinerated parts of Los Angeles County, the blazes may be linked to 410 additional deaths from January 5 to February 1, according to research published Wednesday in the The Journal of the American Medical Association. That would make for a total of 440 wildfire-related deaths, according to the study.
“These additional deaths likely reflect a combination of factors, including increased exposure to poor air quality and health care delays and interruptions,” the study says.
The wildfires’ impact on his loved ones motivated Andrew Stokes, a mortality demographer and one of the authors of the study, to probe for excess deaths.
“Having had many family and friends who were directly affected made me feel compelled to look into this further, using my expertise as a demographer and a person who studies mortality statistics,” the Boston University associate professor told CNN.
