Overview
- Published in Science Advances, the Northwestern-led analysis estimates that residential wood burning accounts for about one-fifth of Americans' wintertime PM2.5 exposure.
- The modeling attributes roughly 8,600 premature deaths per year in the United States to pollution from home wood burning.
- Only about 2% of households primarily heat with wood, yet the study estimates 485,000 tons of primary PM2.5 annually from this source, more than double transportation's primary PM2.5 excluding road dust.
- Researchers find smoke often travels from suburbs across state lines into densely populated urban cores, with multi-state metros such as New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. notably affected.
- The team says transitioning to cleaner or non-burning heating appliances could deliver outsized air-quality gains and save thousands of lives.