Health impacts of a short-lived, small-scale wildfire in South Korea

A wildfire occurred in the Gyeongpo district of Gangneung city, South Korea, on 11 April 2023, lasting for 8 h and burning 300 acres. While previous studies have examined the health effects of major wildfires, research on short-lasting, small-scale wildfires remains scarce. By capitalizing on the timing of the wildfire as a natural experiment, we investigated the health effects of the Gangneung wildfire on residents living near the wildfire site.

The wildfire-exposed and control districts were determined based on satellite images of land damage. The weekly number of district-level cause-specific hospital visits was extracted from the National Health Insurance Database. The number of hospital visits for residents living in the exposed district was compared with that in 20 control districts by using the Generalized Synthetic Control Method. The excess number of visits attributable to the wildfire was estimated for periods of 0-3 and 0-7 weeks following the wildfire.

Over 8 weeks following the wildfire, excess respiratory disease hospital visits {308.7 cases [95% confidence interval (CI): 119.7, 603.6]} were observed in residents of the exposed district, including cases of upper respiratory infections, influenza and pneumonia, and chronic lower respiratory diseases. Cardiovascular disease visits [83.3 cases (95% CI: 32.4, 136.0)] of the exposed district, notably for hypertensive disorders and ischemic heart diseases, increased for ≤4 weeks post-wildfire.

Excess respiratory and cardiovascular disease-related hospital visits were observed among residents living near the wildfire site. Even a small-scale wildfire may have health impacts on residents for >2 months.