Airpocalypse Again: How Canada wildfires are choking the US once again

It’s happening again.

Hundreds of fires raging across Canada have filled the skies with haze over parts of the United States, pushing air quality down to unhealthy levels for the second consecutive day.

While this has prompted a massive evacuation drive for hundreds of residents in Canada, the US authorities were forced to issue their first air quality alert of the season.

Let’s take a closer look.

Wildfires rage in Canada

At least 37 of the 141 active wildfires in Canada have been labelled “out of control,” as per ABC News.

Notably, most active wildfires, at least 90, are in British Columbia and Alberta provinces.

According to The Associated Press, the province’s wildfire service said the wildfire was burning 2.5 kilometres (around 1.5 miles) northwest of Fort Nelson. More than 4,700 people have evacuated after an order was issued on Friday.

Bowinn Ma, the province’s minister of emergency management, said that drought conditions have persisted since last year and no rain is in the forecast.

“The next 48 hours will be a challenging situation. We may begin to see volatile wildfire activity later this afternoon. We are extremely concerned,” she said, adding, “It is extremely uncommon for us to have so many on an evacuation order.”

Cliff Chapman, the service’s director of operations, said they were fortunate that stronger winds didn’t materialise overnight, but said that winds were expected to continue to blow west over the next day or two.

“We did not see the winds through the evening,” Chapman said. He said that helicopters and bulldozers are being used to fight the wildfire, while most ground crews focus on protecting structures.

As per Rob Fraser, mayor of the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality based in Fort Nelson, fire crews and emergency workers were preparing for a “last stand” if the fire advanced into the town.

He said that less than 100 people remained in town. The wildfire service encouraged those left to leave.

The service’s fire behaviour specialist, Ben Boghean, said that the extreme fire behaviour — made worse by years of drought and a below-normal snowpack this past winter — could threaten the crews that have been fighting the nearby Parker Lake wildfire.

Evacuation alerts have also been issued for parts of Alberta as wildfire MWF-017 burns about 16.09 kilometres (10 miles) in te southwest region of Fort McMurray, a city devastated by a wildfire in 2016, as per The Guardian.

Smoke from the fires has prompted air-quality alerts spanning from British Columbia to Manitoba, as per AP.

The Canadian National Railway Company was also forced to suspend services in some affected areas.

“CN has suspended service on our network between Fort St John and Fort Nelson in British Columbia and north of High Level, Alberta due to wildfire activity. We are working with impacted customers as our crews assess damages and identify any required repairs,” spokesperson Ashley Michnowski told CNN.

Canada’s National Preparedness Level increased to level two out of five, meaning “wildland fire activity is increasing within one or more jurisdictions,” according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

Smoke reaches four US states

In the US, smoke from the Canadian wildfires has reached four states – Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin – particularly heavy in Minnesota on Sunday, according to NBC News.

Unhealthy air pollution levels mean everyone in Minnesota should stay indoors and avoid heavy exertion outdoors, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said in its first statewide air quality alert of the season Sunday. Scheduled to end at noon Monday, the advisory was extended until 11 pm for southern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities metro area, AP reported.

According to ABC News, the air quality index (AQI) for most parts of northern Minnesota was between 150 and 200 on Monday, which falls into the “unhealthy” zone. As per the report, the number has sometimes gone above the 200 AQI mark, into a “very unhealthy” category.

Likewise, Bemidji in northern Minnesota recorded a 212 AQI on Sunday, placing the town among the worst air quality locations in the world.

By Monday morning, the wildfire smoke in the US was much weaker, with medium levels reaching from Wisconsin to southern Minnesota, the report said.

On Sunday, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality said that air quality was “unhealthy” in some areas, including Cut Bank, Havre, Malta, Sidney, and Glendive.

The South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources issued an air quality alert on Monday, saying visibility will be low and there will be increased fine particulate matter pollution.

By Monday evening, experts predicted Omaha and Nebraska would experience some hazier skies due to the wildfire smoke.

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was also under hazy skies Monday. Some people reported the smell of smoke, said Joe Phillips, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Marquette, as per AP.

Prevailing winds could send the smoke south and east as far as Iowa and Chicago, leaving skies looking milky by late Tuesday or early Wednesday, said Rafal Ogorek, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Chicago office.

Most of the smoke was expected to linger over Minnesota, Wisconsin, and northern Michigan, hanging between a mile (1.6 kilometres) and two miles (three kilometres) above the ground.

Also read: 490 wildfires, 7.8 million hectares burned and more: Unprecedented wildfires in Canada by the numbers

Not the first time

Canada experienced its most devastating wildfire season in recorded history last year.

More than 45 million acres were burned at the time, as per the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

Last summer, the wildfires sent thick smoke into parts of the US, prompting hazy skies and health advisories in multiple cities.

A total of 18 states, including Montana, New York, and as far south as Georgia, were under air quality alerts, according to AirNow.

New York City topped the list of the world’s worst air quality rankings by a landslide, according to IQ Air.

A warming planet means more wildfires

The chances of more wildfires this summer are high.

Lightning strikes could trigger fires that quickly spread in forests suffering intense drought in northeastern British Columbia, northwestern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories, according to the Canadian National Wildland Fire Situation report.

An analysis by World Weather Attribution, an initiative that aims to quickly evaluate the role of climate change in the aftermath of extreme weather events, found climate change more than doubled the chances of hot, dry weather that helped fuel the fire season.

Loretta Mickley, co-leader of Harvard University’s Atmospheric Chemistry Modelling Group, was quoted by AP as saying that her group did papers in 2013 and 2015 looking at fire activity and ecosystems with an eye towards the future.

She said increasing fire activity is consistent with a warming climate.

If Canada does see a repeat of last year’s fire season, it’s unclear if the US will get haze on the scale of 2023.

Fires in Quebec and Ontario produced most of the smoke that enveloped The Eastern US – but those regions rarely see such large fires.

Instead of pushing the smoke east, the wind drove it south, covering the eastern quarter of the US from the Mississippi River Valley to Manhattan with haze.

“It was an unfortunate, odd kind of weather pattern where you had winds encouraging that air to come south and then east,” Dave Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, a government environmental protection agency, told AP, adding, _“_And it was just a shock to meteorologists, to the world and to everyone who had to endure it… I think it will be a fraction of a concern as it was last year.”

Health hazards

The effects of wildfire smoke are a matter of increasing concern across the US.

This is only expected to worsen, with major health risks to 125 million Americans, according to climate-risk data by the First Street Foundation in February.

Wildfire smoke is especially harmful to individuals with existing health conditions.

It’s associated with strokes, heart disease, respiratory disease, lung cancer, and early death, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Small particles in smoke from wildfires are less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter, thus small enough to reach deep inside the lungs. The four major pollutants here are ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, according to NBC News.

Exposure to these can cause inflammation, weaken the immune system, and exacerbate or increase the risk of asthma, lung cancer and other chronic lung diseases, the report said.

Infants, children and pregnant women are most vulnerable when air quality worsens.

With inputs from agencies