In the first 90 days after the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires that destroyed entire Los Angeles neighborhoods, there was a 46% increase in emergency room visits for heart attack symptoms at LA’s Cedars-Sinai Hospital, according to a recently released study.
“The number of heart attacks in January 2025 exceeded the number of heart attacks in all previous Januarys, even during the Covid years,” Dr. Susan Cheng, director of public health research at Cedars-Sinai and lead author of the study, told the Guardian.
Residents in zip codes directly affected by January’s bushfires or bordering a fire-affected area also reported a 24% increase in lung diseases and a staggering 218% increase in blood test abnormalities.
The Palisades fire was the most destructive fire in the history of Los Angeles, destroying 6,800 structures and killing twelve people. To the east, the Eaton Fire devastated the Altadena neighborhood, with 19 confirmed deaths. More than 9,400 structures were destroyed in Altadena and neighboring Pasadena and Sierra Madre.
The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, are part of a research project about the short- and long-term effects of the fires on human health.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is located approximately 10 and 20 miles from the epicenters of the Palisades and Eaton fires, respectively.
“What we saw during the wildfires was an excess of respiratory illness in our ER that matched the worst years of Covid,” Cheng said. “And that was striking.”
Although some increase in respiratory illnesses was expected due to the effects of wildfire smoke, Cheng said she was surprised not only by the percentage increase, but also by the jump in heart attacks and blood test abnormalities.
“For a very large number of people, exposure to wildfires in January resulted in a biochemical or metabolic stress on the body that likely affected not just one, but multiple organ systems,” she said.
The blood test data came from patients who reported physical symptoms for which there was no clear diagnosis, such as dizziness without obvious signs of dehydration or chest pain without other signs of a heart attack. Cheng noted that the patients’ blood tests revealed subtle abnormalities.
“The blood tests could show that their electrolytes are a little off, like sodium and potassium, or that there is a slight imbalance in their protein levels,” she said. “Or there is a small change in markers of kidney and liver function.”
The Palisades and Eaton fires were particularly harmful to human health due to their classification as a “wildland-urban interface fire (WUI).” This type of fire spreads more easily than a wildfire or an urban-only fire, which burns a combination of organic materials and industrial fuels such as plastics, batteries and electronics.
While the data collected by Chang and her colleagues is a start, many questions remain to be answered about the long-term effects of the January fires on human health. “There is a lot of work to do,” she said. “We are still working hard to put the pieces together.”
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