Pollution from the five months of fires was responsible for 22,000 early deaths in Europe alone.
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More than 350 million people in North America and Europe were exposed to air pollution from Canada's record-breaking 2023 wildfires, according to new estimates published this week.
Scientists behind this world-first research estimate that long-term exposure to smoke likely caused more than 80,000 premature deaths.
Extreme fire conditions, supercharged by climate change, sparked thousands of blazes across Canada between May and September 2023. Around 18 million hectares burned, an area larger than England.
These five months of fires were unprecedented in size and scale, becoming the country's most destructive wildfires on record. They released massive plumes of smoke, triggering health warnings across North America.
But the smoke also drifted across the Atlantic, travelling as far as Europe and causing spikes in harmful particulate pollution.
Wildfire smoke caused tens of thousands of early deaths
The new study, published in the journal Nature, estimates that 354 million people in North America and Europe were exposed to levels of PM2.5 pollution (fine particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter) above the World Health Organization's safe limit.
These fine particles are small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs and have been linked to higher rates of chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and heat disease.
Thousands of kilometres away from the blazes, Europe saw a measurable decline in air quality, with annual exposure to PM2.5 pollution increasing by 4 per cent.
The study's authors separated deaths into acute deaths, those where high levels of PM2.5 triggered fatal events like heart attacks or respiratory failure, and chronic deaths from longer-term exposure.
These chronic health impacts, where pollution increases the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases leading to premature death over time, were "substantial and widespread", they said.
Worldwide, it is estimated that chronic smoke exposure contributed to 82,100 early deaths. More than 22,000 of those early deaths occurred in Europe alone.
As climate change makes wildfires larger, more intense and more frequent, the study's authors say more research into this "underexplored" health cost is crucial.
