A friend who pays more attention WUI and wildfire stuff told me that none of the cost estimates of climate change include the costs dues to smoke. That seemed hard to believe but the source was this interview. In many ways living in the West the smoke in east doesn't seem that far from the normal of the last 5, maybe 10, years. But I have to remember how much denser the east is and how many more people are impacted.
Even if you ignore the question of climate change and put the blame on wildland fire practices and our approach to forests over the last century this is going to be a long term problem. And an expensive one. There seems to be such a barrier to get over to get back to relatively healthy balance of fuels. Listening to old timers say what worked 50 years ago isn't clearly a solution because we put our thumbs on the scale and now the consequences are getting hard to tamp down.
https://heatmap.news/climate/wildfire-smoke-east-air-quality
