SCIENTISTS REVEAL WINTER HABIT THAT MAY BE KILLING THOUSANDS EACH YEAR
Burning wood to heat homes in winter may be linked to around 8,600 premature deaths each year in the United States, a new study has warned.
Researchers found that residential wood combustion (RWC) contributes around 21.9 percent of wintertime particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions across the contiguous U.S.
Exposure to fine particulate matter—one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) criteria pollutants—has been “extensively and robustly linked to adverse health outcomes, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, as well as increased mortality,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
The latest study suggests that RWC makes “unexpectedly substantial contributions to PM2.5 pollution in metropolitan areas,” said a statement published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
“RWC-related PM2.5 is transported across state boundaries, especially in multi-state metro areas, such as New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Only two percent of U.S. households use wood combustion as their main source for heating in the form of hydronic heaters, wood-burning furnaces, wood stoves and pellet-fired wood stoves.
Despite this, the EPA’s 2023 National Emissions Inventory concluded that “these sources collectively make up a substantial share of wintertime PM2.5 emissions,” which ultimately impacts air quality and human health, the AAAS statement explains.
According to the study, RWC is estimated to produce around 485,000 tons of primary PM2.5 annually, which amounts to more than double the total estimated primary PM2.5 emissions of the transportation sector, not accounting for road dust, and nearly a third (around 28 percent) of total wintertime PM2.5 emissions in the U.S.
“Though RWC produces higher PM2.5 emissions per unit energy generated than other forms of residential energy/heating technologies, global RWC activity may be on the rise,” the scientists warn in the study.
According to the 2025 State of Global Air Report, ambient outdoor PM2.5 causes around 4.9 million deaths per year across the globe, which is more than any other category of pollution. In the U.S., exposure to PM2.5 is said to cause around 95,000 to 300,000 premature deaths annually, the study noted.
The scientists said: “Targeted RWC emission mitigation strategies aimed at reducing RWC in regions with poor wintertime air quality could be a resource-efficient approach to improve air quality, reduce premature deaths from air pollution, and mitigate unequal pollution burdens.”
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Reference
Shlipak, K. K., Camilleri, S. F., Lang, V. A., Montgomery, A., Schnell, J. L., & Horton, D. E. (2026). Ambient air quality and health impacts of PM2.5 from US residential wood combustion. Science Advances, 12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adz0189
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2026-01-23T19:13:50Z
