Canadian wildfire smoke reaches Europe after near 7,000-km journey
While Canadian fire crews across several provinces continue to battle blazes that have prompted states of emergency and forced people from their homes, smoke from the wildfires have been travelling a fair distance over the past few weeks, especially in recent days.
Over the past few days, smoke has travelled nearly 7,000 kilometres––more than half of the globe in distance. And that won't be the end of it, either, as additional smoke is expected to reach Europe in the coming days as strong winds force the plume farther east into the continent.
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According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), the first high-altitude smoke plume entered the Mediterranean region on May 18-19, with reports of it reaching Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. Following that, a much larger quantity of wildfire smoke plume travelled across the Atlantic during the last week of May, hitting northwestern parts of Europe on Sunday, June 1.
The issue of wildfire smoke will remain a problem for Eastern Canada, as well, with recent, explosive fire behaviour in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and strong winds expected to push more of it eastward, eventually hitting Europe in the next week or so.
Major wildfires continue throughout portions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and northern British Columbia. Provincial states of emergency have been issued for Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where multiple communities remain under evacuation orders.
Mark Parrington, senior scientist of with CAMS, said wildfires are a frequent occurrence in boreal forests from spring and through the summer months.
June 1-3, 2025 satellite imagery. (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT))
Up to the start of June, CAMS' data showed that parts of Canada have experienced a "very intense few weeks" in terms of wildfire emissions.
"This data, and the fact that we are able to observe the smoke in Europe, is a reflection of the scale of the fires and impacts they have been having in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In CAMS, we monitor events such as these in order to understand how they affect the atmosphere and air quality regionally and globally," said Parrington, in a news release.
The good news is that the air quality in Europe isn't expected to be affected, unlike parts of Canada where alerts are in place to advise of health risks, since it will remain well above the surface. But folks can expect hazy skies alongside red sunrises and sunsets.
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With files from Rachel Modestino, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.
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