People take pictures at a vista point with the San Francisco skyline obscured by smoke from wildfires during a spate of smoke during 2020, one of the worst wildfire smoke years on record. But recently, as wildfires have become larger, more destructive and longer-lasting, a new risk has come into focus for millions across the country: wildfire smoke. The analysis, published this week in Nature, found that wildfire smoke already contributes to some 40,000 deaths each year in the U.S. By the middle of the century, smoke levels could be double or triple the average wildfire smoke concentrations experienced across the country today, he says. Wildfire smoke deaths, by extension, could rise from an estimated 40,000 today to some 70,000 people a year in the U.S.