Canada`s worst-ever wildfire season has choked much of North America with dangerous smoke for months, coupling with deadly heat around the globe in a summer that`s focusing the world`s attention on the perils of climate change.
By last week, some 42,000 square miles had burned in Canada — half again more than the entire Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. About 900 fires were actively burning, with only about one-fifth considered under control.
“I watch this pretty much 24/7,” Mark Smith, the air quality meteorologist for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, told the Chilkat Valley News in Haines last week.
The state of Alaska put out an air quality advisory on July 13, warning of potentially unhealthy air throughout Southeast. The smoke alert said the air quality level for the entire panhandle — from Skagway to Ketchikan — dropped from “good” to “moderate.”
The advisory ended on July 15.
Smith said unofficial air quality readings showed particulate in the air mostly in the “good” range throughout the period of the advisory. Air quality is measured by what’s known as the Air Quality Index, which measures fine particles in the air on a scale of 1 to 500.
“The highest I saw around Haines was up to 56, which is right in the threshold between good and moderate,” said Smith.
Nearly 900 wildfires were burning in British Columbia as of July 17. Scientists say the burning is exacerbated by climate change, which has led Canada’s temperatures to warm at about twice the rate of the global average.
Smoke from the fires continues to cause harmful air quality across the Eastern U.S., but mid-July winds started to shift to push some of the smoke toward Alaska. Most of the particulate is traveling high in the atmosphere — 10,000 to 15,000 feet in the air — which doesn't cause any public health concerns. But Smith said if the winds stop blowing, particulates can settle into the river valleys.
For now, there are some things to be grateful for, Smith said. Alaska’s wildfire season has been well below average in terms of acres burned. So far most of the smoke has stayed in the upper atmosphere and hasn’t settled down. Siberia hasn’t had major wildfire activities, which sometimes send smoke to Alaska. Many of the Canadian fires were tampered down by recent rainfall.
Smith said it’s rare for Southeast to have serious effects from wildfire smoke. The last time he remembers was in 2019 when Southcentral Alaska had one of its worst fire seasons ever. Still, he said, summer is far from over.
“In the past eight years, we’ve only had one or two days impacted by smoke,” he said. “This year could be a year we’re impacted.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting for this story.
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