With more than 200 wildfires raging across areas of Canada, some regions of the United States may experience dangerous air quality conditions due to the drifting smoke, though the National Weather Service states that smoke is currently too high in the atmosphere to cause a problem in Western New York.
“The wildfire smoke is drifting in over our area right now. It’s what’s giving us that hazy look to the sky, that reddish-orangish tint to the sun,” said Dan Kelly, a meteorologist at the Buffalo office of the NWS. “It’s up there pretty high. Here in Buffalo they’re reporting it at 25,000 feet.”
The high altitude of the smoke in our region should make it more diffused and prevent it from causing any respiratory issues, Kelly explained, adding that rain in the forecast later this week should help clear some of the smoke particulates out.
“The rain that’s coming, early Thursday, that should clean everything out,” he said. “They’re expecting the hazy skies to stick around (to Wednesday), but on Thursday it should clear out.”
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre website reported Tuesday afternoon that there were 209 active wildfires, mostly in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, with 105 listed as being out of control.
Nearly 5 million acres are listed as having been destroyed.
Air quality index maps provided by the Environmental Protection Agency indicate that areas of the Upper Midwest — largely Minnesota and Wisconsin — are bearing the brunt of the smoke in the atmosphere, with the air quality listed as unhealthy.
The Associated Press reported Canada’s wildfires are so large and intense that the smoke is even reaching Europe, where it is causing hazy skies but isn’t expected to affect surface-air quality, according the European climate service Copernicus.
The first high-altitude plume reached Greece and the eastern Mediterranean just over two weeks ago, with a much larger plume crossing the Atlantic within the past week and more expected in coming days, AP reported.
Traces of smoke from Canadian wildfires somewhat affected air quality over Olean and Cattaraugus County last August — but the region was not affected like in June 2023.
Certain days during this month in 2023 brought a cloak of smoke wafting down from Canadian wildfires, which were even more widespread — from western provinces to northern Ontario and even provinces to the northeast.
Air-quality alerts for the area were issued in early June 2023, with smoke obscuring the hills around Olean and Allegany on some days.
