Over the coming decades, wildfires threaten to upend the public health, economic, and ecological systems of Californian communities.

Wildfire smoke is as deadly a killer as vehicle crashes, each claiming around 40,000 American lives per year according to new studies. As the American West heats up and dries out, that toll could rise by more than 70% by 2050. To triage the crisis, Bay Area fire officials and Stanford climate and public health researchers came together at a summit hosted by Stanford and District Five of Santa Clara County.

What’s at stake

Once a minor contributor to overall air pollution, wildfire smoke now accounts for up to half of annual particulate exposure in Northern California. The public health consequences of this new reality are stark: Sharon Chinthrajah, a pulmonologist and immunologist at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research studies how fine particles from wildfire smoke can infiltrate the body, altering gene expression, weakening immune defenses, and leaving behind toxic traces of metals such as mercury and cadmium. Children, the elderly, and pregnant women are especially vulnerable, but chronic smoke exposure threatens everyone.

“When it comes to healthy aging and longevity,” Chinthrajah warned, “all of us are at risk.”

The panel “Wildfire Risk & Resilience: Science, Strategy, and Systems” featured, from left to right, Bruce Cain (moderator), Marshall Burke, Michael Mastrandrea, and Sharon Chinthrajah. | Courtesy Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

By analyzing population-level health data, Marshall Burke, professor of environmental social sciences in the Doerr School of Sustainability, aims to quantify the impacts of wildfire smoke and evaluate intervention strategies like prescribed burns or in-home air monitors. Each acre intentionally burned today, he explained, reduces smoke impacts by three to five times the initial cost over the following decade. The challenge is building public acceptance: The benefits accrue slowly, while the smoke from prescribed burns is immediate and visible.

Michael Mastrandrea, research director for the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, emphasized that the same interventions are essential to stabilizing insurance markets and curbing rising utility costs.

Frontline solutions

Across Northern California, fire officials are turning research insights to solutions. Santa Clara County Fire Chief Suwanna Kerdkaew described how her department has transformed its wildfire response capacity over the past decade – expanding from four to more than a dozen engines, creating a wildfire resilience program, and participating heavily in California’s mutual aid system. Yet the scale of recent fires, she said, has made one lesson unavoidable: “We are underresourced one hundred percent of the time.”

The panel “From Insight to Action: Policy Pathways for Wildfire Resilience” featured, from left to right, Michael Wara (moderator), Mark Brown, Suwanna Kerdkaew, Jo Ann “J” Logan, and Seth Schalet. | Courtesy Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

Fire officials across Northern California pointed to community engagement programs as consistent success stories. In Los Altos Hills, programs such as Firewise USA communities, property risk assessments with rebates, and even seasonal goat herds for fuel reduction are helping residents take ownership of prevention efforts. A new $400,000 grant will help launch a South Bay Prescribed Burn Association to educate communities and build capacity for safer, more frequent burns.

Marin’s Wildfire Prevention Authority invested in a “house-out” approach. That strategy starts with making individual homes more ignition-resistant and extends outward to evacuation routes, shaded fuel breaks, and vegetation management. Marin residents can also participate in a “zone zero in a box” program to encourage ember-resistant practices, offering residents different service tiers – from full contractor support to do-it-yourself guidance – and subsidizing lower-income households through grants.

The way forward

Across the discussions, fire officials, policymakers, and researchers acknowledged the scale of the crisis and agreed on the necessary path forward: Reducing risk at its source through research, community engagement, and collaboration is the only way to prevent wildfire smoke from defining the future of the West.

“We are going to have fire and smoke,” Burke said. “The question is whether we face it on our own terms.”