Canadian wildfires again cause poor air conditions in the United States.

 

A plane fights a wildfire in Manitoba. RCMP via AFP/ABC. 

Smoke from wildfires in Canada have again caused poor air conditions in the United States. ABC News. 181 fires are burning in Canada and 92 of those fires are considered out of control. The air quality in the Midwest has been greatly affected by those fires, with conditions in Minnesota, Wisconsin and other midwestern states. The wildfires are being compounded by the lack of rain in Canada, though both Canadian and American firefighters are trying to control the blazes. 

My Comment:

As someone that lives in Wisconsin, this is not good news at all. It's unclear in the forecast if the air is going to go bad again, we've got a cold front coming through with major storms expected tomorrow. The air quality now isn't good, it's on the borderline of fair and poor, but it is projected to get worse. 

It was dramatically worse last week. Friday was almost intolerable. I seem to remember the Air Quality Scale being at 170, which is very unhealthy, and I believe it. Every single person at work today reported that they were sick on Friday and I was no exception. 

Indeed, I spent the entire weekend coughing. Friday into Saturday was horrible to the point where nothing was helping. I had the air conditioning on in my apartment, I took allergy and cold medicine and I didn't go outside after work. None of it helped and I was feeling pretty terrible. By Saturday evening things had cleared out, but I was still coughing due to the after effects. Even now I am still a bit stuffy, though that could be due to the new wave of poor air or seasonal allergies. 

What galls me about this is we had to deal with this a couple of years ago too. 2023 had major wildfires in Canada and the same thing happened. I remember getting sick back then too, though not as bad as Friday night. I can't imagine how the folks are dealing with this in upper Minnesota right now, their air quality is in the upper two categories on the Air Quality Scale, Very Unhealthy and Dangerous. And it's not just them, it looks like the Dakotas are getting hit pretty hard too. 

I really do blame this on Canada. They do not seem to do fire management very well, just like California. Wildfires are obviously always going to happen, but Canada does seem to do a much worse job of it. I don't know if that's on the province level or on the Federal Government but it's clear something is going wrong up there, just like it was clear that things in California are bad too. 

Still, I am hoping that either the weather changes or the firefighters, who do deserve all the credit in the world, are able to get this under control. These fires are bad for everyone and as much as I dislike Canada, I don't want the whole country to burn to the ground.