LA Wildfires' True Death Toll Could Be In The Hundreds, Researchers Find

LOS ANGELES, CA — The official death count from the Eaton and Palisades fires stands at 31. But new research suggests that number may be off — hundreds more people may have died as a result of the January wildfires.

“The official estimates are barely scraping the surface,” researcher Andrew Stokes told SFGate.

A research letter published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates Los Angeles experienced 440 more deaths than what would typically be expected for the period of time between Jan. 5 and Feb. 1.

The 19 people killed in the Eaton Fire and 12 killed in the Palisades Fire represent deaths directly attributed to the fires, such as people whose remains were found in burned buildings.

But the increase in deaths in the county while the fires were burning could be attributed to what researchers called "partially attributable deaths" — like those who died from lung or heart conditions exacerbated by smoke or stress and "indirect deaths" — such as those due to disruptions to health systems and mental health impact.

The research team analyzed data from the same four-week stretch in previous years and found there were 6.9% more deaths from any cause this year, during the wildfires, compared to previous years, SFGate reported.

“Attributing deaths properly to a wildfire is just almost an impossible task,” Stokes, an associate professor at Boston University who co-authored the research letter, told the Los Angeles Times. “The research highlights the need for these types of modeling efforts to really get at the true burden of these disasters.”

And Stokes said his research still doesn't offer a full picture of the effects. First responders and those who live in and near the fire zone could face future heath issues stemming from exposure to smoke and ash, the Times reported.

• Read more: 'We're Going To Have Firefighters Die:' Wildfire Documentary Shows LA's '9/11'

“What we’ve done here is what we call a rapid assessment of the LA wildfire mortality,” he said. “And as such, we only focus on the acute period in which the wildfires were burning in Los Angeles. But we hope that there will be further research to evaluate the long tail of these wildfires.”

A study published last year by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation found an estimated 55,000 premature deaths in an 11-year span from inhaling fine particulate matter from wildfires.