Recent increases in the frequency and scale of wildfires worldwide have raised concerns about the influence of climate change and associated socioeconomic costs. In the western United States, the hazard of wildfire has been increasing for decades. Here, we use a combination of physical, epidemiological and economic models to estimate the economic impacts of California wildfires in 2018, including the value of destroyed and damaged capital, the health costs related to air pollution exposure and indirect losses due to broader economic disruption cascading along with regional and national supply chains. Our estimation shows that wildfire damages in 2018 totalled $148.5 (126.1–192.9) billion (roughly 1.5% of California’s annual gross domestic product), with $27.7 billion (19%) in capital losses, $32.2 billion (22%) in health costs and $88.6 billion (59%) in indirect losses (all values in US$). Our results reveal that the majority of economic impacts related to California wildfires may be indirect and often affect industry sectors and locations distant from the fires (for example, 52% of the indirect losses—31% of total losses—in 2018 were outside of California). Our findings and methods provide new information for decision makers tasked with protecting lives and key production sectors and reducing the economic damages of future wildfires.

最近全球范围内野火的发生频率和规模增加，引起了人们对气候变化的影响以及相关的社会经济成本的担忧。在美国西部，野火的危害已经增加了数十年。在这里，我们使用物理，流行病学和经济模型的组合来估计2018年加州野火的经济影响，包括被破坏和破坏的资本的价值，与空气污染相关的健康成本以及由于更广泛的经济破坏而造成的间接损失以及区域和国家供应链。我们的估计显示，2018年的野火损失总计148.5亿美元（126.-1929亿美元）（约占加利福尼亚年度国内生产总值的1.5％），其中包括277亿美元（19％）的资本损失，322亿美元（22％）的医疗费用和88美元。间接损失为60亿（59％）（所有价值单位为美元）。我们的结果表明，与加州野火有关的大多数经济影响可能是间接的，并且通常会影响远离火灾的行业和地区（例如，2018年间接损失的52％（占总损失的31％）在加利福尼亚州以外） ）。我们的发现和方法为负责保护生命和主要生产部门并减少未来野火的经济损失的决策者提供了新的信息。