Smoke-filled summer skies and poor air quality during the months we are meant to be outdoors. “Living up there means we have to get used to these sorts of events and do our best to be prepared for them.” “In some ways, they’re good for the forest, the forest is adapted for them. Many of the fires that started in Quebec were in incredibly rural areas, far away from roads or points of access, making it impossible to put them out. “There’s nothing you can do to stop them, except to wait for them to slow down or turn.” “No matter how many people no matter how many water bombers, you can’t stop that many fires at once,” said Barber. It has resulted in this year’s fires burning in unprecedented ways. Lightning from spring storms moving across the country started as many as 100 new fires a day, according to Barber. “We’re at over 4.5 million hectares (11 million acres) burned, which means this is the most area burned we’ve had in ever for a spring fire season,” Barber explained.Ĭanada’s hot and dry conditions over the last few months primed the forest to burn in unprecedented ways. Smoke rises from a wildfire in the Donnie Creek Complex south of Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Canada May 27, 2023. Fire season has at least three more months to go. With this year’s fire season off the charts, the numbers could increase. He said it results in thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of premature deaths each year. “It’s just covered in perhaps 50 fires, 30 of which happened in the last day.”Īs of a week ago, Canada had more people evacuated from their homes because of wildfires than ever before in a fire season, according to Barber.

“The map of fires looks like chickenpox,” Barber said. Yet no one is feeling it more than Canada.ĬNN meteorologist lights match in studio to demonstrate poor air quality I think what happened last week opened the eyes of many who realized for the first time what effects such fires can have on the West each year.Īnd it also opened our eyes to how far-reaching the effects from wildfires can be felt. “And that goes for Canada, and for those unfortunate enough to be downwind of us, the Eastern Seaboard.” “It’s likely we’re going to see a particularly bad air quality for the rest of the fire season compared to what we’re used to,” Quinn Barber, fire science analyst with the Canadian Forest Service told me Friday on the phone. A person talks on his phone as he looks through the haze at the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee, New Jersey, Wednesday, June 7, 2023.

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