Fires reverse progress toward ozone air quality standards in the United States

Recent surges in wildfire emissions have exacerbated surface ozone pollution in the United States. Using deep learning, we developed a gapless daily surface ozone dataset at 1-kilometer resolution for 2003–2024. This dataset revealed a reversal in national policy–relevant ozone trends that had gone undetected by the sparse monitoring network: from −0.65 parts per billion (ppb) per year (2003–2015) to +0.13 ppb per year (2015–2024). The reversal was primarily driven by increasing wildfire emissions, offsetting 3.9 years of mitigation progress. Premature deaths from fire-sourced ozone have increased by 318 deaths per year since 2013, with post-2013 mortality 46% higher than pre-2013 mortality. During 2022–2024, wildfire emissions exposed 43 million people to nonattainment conditions, effectively preventing a 4-ppb tightening of the ozone standard. These results underscore the growing challenges of sustaining air quality progress as wildfires intensify under climate change.