MN lawmakers call out Canadian officials over wildfires efforts

MN lawmakers call out Canada over wildfires

Minnesota lawmakers are urging Canadian officials to do more to control wildfires burning, creating smokey conditions as far south as the Twin Cities.

(FOX 9) - With all this talk about air quality, you may be wondering why the wildfires in Canada continue to burn. Minnesota and Wisconsin congressional lawmakers wrote a letter to Canada asking how the government plans to mitigate the wildfire smoke we all experienced. Canada did respond.

Minnesota and Wisconsin lawmakers write to Canada

What we know:

Four Congressional lawmakers from Minnesota, Brad Finstad (MN-01), Tom Emmer (MN-06), Michelle Fischbach (MN-07), and Pete Stauber (MN-08), and two from Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany (WI-07) and Glenn Grothman (WI-06), signed the letter in hopes that something can be done. As Chief Meteorologist Ian Leonard says, this is the new normal.

The letter says in part: "With all the technology that we have at our disposal, both in preventing and fighting wildfires, this worrisome trend can be reversed if proper action is taken. Our constituents have been limited in their ability to go outside and safely breathe due to the dangerous air quality the wildfire smoke has created."

Canada did respond.

"This is what turns people off from politics, is when you got a group of congresspeople trying to trivialize and make hay out of a wildfire season where we've lost lives in our province," said Wab Kinew, Premier of Manitoba. 

Wildfires in Canada

What we know:

These wildfires are hard to fight. As Chief Meteorologist Ian Leonard explains, the wildfires are hundreds of miles north of the Twin Cities to the point where there are no roads to drive fire trucks to it. Of course, there is the frustration of the constant smoke, haze, and awful air quality. But it's not something that can just be fixed overnight.

"Given the pattern shifts each and every year, given how wet we have been this year in Minnesota and how dry parts of northern Canada have been, I don't see that pattern shifting. The translation there is, yes, the wildfires will continue to burn in uninhabited northern Canada, and yes, we will continue to deal with the smoke and the haze," said Chief Meteorologist Ian Leonard.

After talking to our favorite Canadian, Ian Leonard, he tells us, his family and friends who are closer in proximity are twice as miserable with the wildfire smoke than we are.

Full letter

Dig deeper:

You can read the full letter by clicking here: