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Why is there constantly wildfire smoke coming from Canada?
With smoke from wildfires in Canada becoming a regular seasonal occurrence, FOX 9 meteorologist Cody Matz explains what's behind the repeated air quality alerts.
(FOX 9) - If it seems like we’ve had more poor air quality days in Minnesota in recent years because of fires burning in Canada, you are not wrong.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) began issuing Air Quality Alerts in 2008. To date, this year and 2023 have been the worst in terms of smoke impacting the state.
"What’s happened in Canada in 2023, and this year, was drought," explains MPCA Meteorologist Ryan Lueck.
Mild winters, dry forests
What’s happened:
Lueck told FOX 9 that a smaller snowpack in Canada has left forests primed to burn, starting wildfire season earlier than normal.
The number of fires burning across Canada is staggering, fueled by warmer weather and wind.
Rising temperatures, even by a few degrees, have made wildfires much more intense over the past decade.
"So, we can look back all the way back to the 1980s, and we can see how much area has burned in Canada," explained Lueck. "Those numbers have spiked in recent years."
The most widespread amount of area that was burned by wildfires in Canada was in 2023, while 2025 is on pace to come in second.
Vast wilderness
Dig deeper:
The fires burning further north are in vast, sparsely populated areas of millions of acres with very few roads.
That makes it difficult, if not impossible, to do much in terms of prevention. It also makes it very tough to fight them.
"It’s remote," said Lueck. "There’s a lot of areas where, if you wanted to fight the fires, you’d have to drop firefighters in by plane. And then that becomes a danger and hazard for the firefighters."
Without enough resources to fight all the fires at once, crews must prioritize those that threaten more populated areas.
In other words, the fires will continue to burn and drifting smoke into Minnesota will continue to be a factor into the fall.
"We have the wildfires in place. They’re going to stay there. Now it’s a matter of when the wind will direct that smoke toward Minnesota."
Tough fight
What they're saying:
We also spoke to Ralph Bloemers, a documentarian and wildfire expert in Oregon. He’s also the director of Fire Safe Communities, which works to prepare people and homes to live with the reality of intensifying fire conditions.
"Water drops are pretty futile when it’s that big of a fire over that vast of an area," he told FOX 9 of the massive challenge currently in Canada.
With fires so widespread in the remote forest areas, air drops of water make such a small dent that it does little towards putting them out.
Hot and dry air makes it even harder.
"I was just talking to some pilots in Canada who fly over these fires and they’re dropping 3,000, maybe even more, gallons of water. But when they drop that water, a lot of it, the atmosphere’s just so thirsty, it just vaporizes."