Despite the heat, June brings a breath of fresh air compared to 2023

Jun. 22—WATERTOWN — Last year at this time, our noses were on alert and our eyes, when not shocked by smoky haze, were focused on air quality apps suddenly downloaded to our phones.

It was caused by Canadian wildfires and an unusual weather pattern that brought that smoke south — at times all the way to Florida. Officials in Canada said it was the worst year for wildfires ever recorded in the country.

For example, on June 6, 2023, people woke up in Clayton and couldn't see the St. Lawrence River. In Watertown, street lights came on later in the morning as the smoke that drifted south from Quebec wildfires permeated the north country and prompted air quality alerts.

This year, the difference is clear as day. But it may be too early to say for sure.

"I wouldn't say we're out of the woods," Céline Audette, manager of health and air quality forecast services at Environment and Climate Change Canada, said in a phone interview on Thursday from her office in Quebec. "Having wildfires in the spring aren't that common. It's usually at the end of summer. It's still possible that we could have fires in late summer or early fall, depending on how the season goes."

This week's heat wave isn't helping matters. "There are certain areas that have had multiple-year droughts. Even though we've had a lot of rain, it could still dry out and cause some issues," she said.

The spring wildfires this year in Canada were an ominous sign. They were largely caused by "zombie fires" — ones that smoldered under snow and carried over the winter.

"Alberta had some of those, so they declared their wildfire season starting in March because of those smoldering fires," Audette said.

Large parts of Canada also faced drought conditions over the winter. In mid-May, the CBC reported the nation's wildfire season was off to an early start. Also in May, Minnesota officials issued an air quality alert due to smoke from Canadian wildfires, with fine particle levels reaching the red air quality index (AQI) category, a level considered unhealthy for everyone.

The Canadian wildfire situation has since calmed down, but not totally.

"Northern Quebec still has an extreme fire danger rating," Audette said. "That includes Labrador and the eastern side of northern Quebec."

Audette noted that in Labrador, the fire caused evacuations this week in the Churchill Falls community.

Last year the total area burned in Canada was 60 million hectares (148 million acres). The average, Audette said is 2.5 million hectares burned annually.

"We do attribute it to climate change, multi-year drought, precipitation anomalies and extreme heat," Audette said of last year's record.

She added, "Interestingly, it was the same number of fires in 2021, but the area burned was much lower in 2021, than 2023."(For 2022, the overall fire season in Canada was relatively quiet).

The 2023 fires were also more intense than the ones in 2021. "It was bigger fires and more fuel burning for longer periods of time," Audette said. "All of the provinces that had significant wildfires had a lot of zombie fires as well."

Unusual weather patterns were attributed to Canadian smoke drifting down to the states last year.

"In 2021, the smoke went east to west, so it didn't impact the big cities," Audette said. "Sometimes it would come south or it would be aloft, high in the atmosphere and not coming down to the surface."

Dry and intense winds helped to fuel the 2023 fires, Audette said.

"There had been some lightning strikes and small fires smoldering, but as soon as that wind hit, the June fires transported the smoke down. It lasted for weeks. Then it stopped and lasted for another few weeks. In mid-July to August, the air was clear, the fire was also not as intense."

Learning from burning

The 2023 fire season was a learning experience for Canadian environment officials, Audette said. For example, in response to public feedback during last year's wildfire events, Environment and Climate Change Canada launched improvements to its air quality forecast and alert system. A new Air Quality Advisory with a red banner notification is now a feature on weather.gc.ca and the WeatherCan app. The alert areas were previously in gray.

"In 2023, because everything was always gray and it lasted for so long, people became complacent, like they didn't react to the smoke as much as they should," Aulette said. "It's a tiered system we now have for wildfire smoke."

In the U.S., people can track air quality through AirNow — a partnership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Park Service, NASA, Centers for Disease Control, and tribal, state and local air quality agencies.

AirNow's Fire and Smoke map, a collaborative project with the U.S. Forest Service, uses a variety of products including low-cost sensors to provide detailed, up-to-date information that can be critical to users experiencing smoke events.

The sensors record "particilate matter" (aka PM2.5) — pollution that consists of tiny particles or droplets that are 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter. Ozone levels are also tracked. As of Friday afternoon, all was "Good" in the north country.

But it's more than smoke that can cause air alerts. For example, on Thursday morning the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued an Air Quality Health Advisory for several counties downstate. "Air quality levels in outdoor air are predicted to be greater than an Air Quality Index value of 100 for the pollutant of Ground Level Ozone," the alert said. Like fire, the production of ozone accelerates at high temperatures.