Amid a wildfire season like no other in California, smoke alone has likely contributed to between 1,000 and 3,500 deaths this year, according to a report by Stanford University researchers and obtained by The Mercury News. These deaths were people over the age of 65 who mostly had pre-existing medical conditions. The study didn’t account for other badly hit West Coast cities in Washington and Oregon where air pollution at one point was ranked the worst in the entire world. Smoke levels broke California records and there’s still another month left of wildfire season. “Clean air is much more important than we realize,” associate professor of earth system science at Stanford Marshall Burke said. “When you look at it on a population level, you can see very clearly that breathing clean air has huge public health benefits, and breathing dirty air has disastrous consequences.”