Two years after the devastating Maui wildfires, a new study shows the disaster raised the local death rate by 67%. According to research published in the journal "Frontiers in Climate," the disaster temporarily made wildfires the leading cause of death in Maui.

Maui

A recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Climate has found that the Maui wildfires caused a 67% increase in the local death rate. Researchers attributed 82 excess deaths to the disaster, with a total of 102 fatalities reported by Maui County. The study used five years of CDC data to model expected deaths and compared this to observed figures during the month of the wildfires.

The research identified both direct deaths, such as those from burns and smoke inhalation, and indirect deaths, including those resulting from disrupted access to medical care. The authors recommend a two-pronged approach to prevention, involving improved climate modeling and emergency response, as well as long-term ecological solutions and strengthened healthcare infrastructure.

Maui wildfires caused 67% rise in local death rate, study finds

All right, two years after the devastating Maui wildfires, a new study shows the disaster raised the local death rate by 67%, according to research published in the journal Frontiers in Climate. The disaster temporarily made wildfires, the leading cause of death in Maui. Researchers say the fires caused a spike in deaths higher than what was reported, citing fatalities linked to fire, smoke and lack of access to medical care. The study links 82 excess excess deaths to the wildfires, according to the CDC. 102 total people died. Michelle Nakatsuka joins us now. She's the co-author of that study and a medical student at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Michelle, good to have you on. This is some really interesting research you have. So you based your calculations on the all-cause excess death rate. So for people like me who are not that familiar with it, what does that mean? And what are the biggest takeaways from the study? Sure, so all-cause excess mortality, which was the primary finding we looked at in our study, is defined as the difference between the observed and the expected number of deaths during a given month. So in this case, August 2023, the month of the Lahaina wildfire. What we did is we basically trained a model on five years of CDC data leading up until the wildfire to expect a certain baseline number of deaths, and from there subtracted that baseline out, and we're able to determine what the excess number of deaths then resulting from the fire was. The observed number we looked at was the official death report from Maui County. The expected death number was based on our model findings, and that difference was 82 deaths, so a two-thirds increase from baseline in what we would have expected in terms of mortality. Wow, so these fires were just so devastating in that region. It must be so difficult to collect all the data points and to kind of sift through it. How did you account for all the different types of deaths that can be attributed to wildfires? Yeah, and that's a great question, because I think when we think of wildfires, we tend to think of what we call direct deaths as opposed to indirect deaths, and those are really the two buckets we can categorize these deaths into, direct deaths resulting from burns, things like smoke inhalation injury, whereas indirect deaths tend to result from quieter mechanisms that can persist long after the flames have actually gone out, things like disruptions in healthcare access, so people being unable to renew their prescription medications, being unable to access oxygen therapy or dialysis treatments, and those things unfortunately can persist, again, long after the fires themselves have been dealt with. So you're coming out with these findings, and it's just really important research for so many people, but how can authorities use this data to improve wildfire prevention and preparedness strategies going forward? I think that's the key question here, and really, because we just talked about the two different causes of direct and indirect deaths, I think the prevention strategies themselves call for a two-pronged approach. So first, in addressing direct deaths, we need better climate modeling, and that calls for more temporally and regionally-specific data that we can use to anticipate shifts in the climate that might predispose to things like this climate-amplified disaster in the case of the Lahaina wildfire. Hopefully then we can employ evacuation protocols and emergency response teams more swiftly, and we also advocate in the paper for better long-term solutions, things like implementation of Native Hawaiian agroecological solutions. So things like planting breadfruit trees, lo'i kalo, which are taro farms, or loko'ia, which are fish ponds, and these things help keep the land more resilient and wet so that when you have things like wildfires occurring, the propagation of flames is stopped and doesn't move further than that. And then in terms of addressing the indirect deaths, making sure we have infrastructure in place so that people are able to access healthcare and we aren't experiencing those disruptions to things like dialysis treatments, oxygen therapies, et cetera, just so that we can really minimize the impact these fires are having on our communities. Yeah, well, just such important research that you've done, so congratulations on that. Michelle Nakatsuka, we appreciate your time. Thank you.

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