Smell plaguing Shropshire is coming from 2,500 miles away

Telegraph

3 days ago

The smell of smoke from Canada's wildfires has travelled 2,500 miles across the Atlantic to Shropshire.
Residents in Herongate, a suburb of the market town of Shrewsbury, reported feeling their lungs tightening and having to close their windows to escape the smoke.
Wildfires have been blazing across Canada, forcing evacuations from Vancouver Island on the Pacific Coast to Newfoundland in the North Atlantic.
Over 17 million acres have already been burned this year during their wildfire season, with the armed forces and Coast Guard drafted in to battle the flames.
Smoke has spread across almost the entire span of the Northern Hemisphere.
Residents told The Shropshire Star: 'It smelt quite strong at about 11pm but I couldn't see anything in the area, no sign of drifting smoke or a bonfire or anything like that.
'I feel sorry for anyone with a lung condition, they would have suffered if they could taste that smell.'
This year's devastation in Canada is significantly above the 25 year average, although it remains below the 2023 record when more than 45 million acres were destroyed.
Nasa satellite imagery shows a trail of toxic carbon monoxide stretching from Canada over Western and Northern Europe, reaching as far as Russia.
While unlikely to impact British air quality, this week 81 million Americans over 14 states were put under air quality alerts as smoke poured over the northern border. Residents reported hazy skies as far south as Texas.
The Met Office confirmed that 'there's a high likelihood that Canadian wildfire smoke is over parts of the UK currently ', adding that light winds could have allowed particles to sink to ground level.
This is not the first time the UK has smelled Canada's burning forests. Earlier this summer when wildfires raged over Canada, residents from four separate Doncaster suburbs reported being woken by a strong smell of burning and smoke despite no incidents being recorded by the local fire service.
Earlier in Canada's 2025 wildfire season, air quality monitors reported drops in Italian, French, and Swiss cities, connecting the shifts to Canadian smoke.
What causes wildfires
Fires at the height of summer are usually caused by natural events like lightning strikes. However, firefighters from Ashcroft, British Columbia, reported last week that a wildfire just south of the town was sparked when an Osprey dropped a fish it had caught onto power lines.
Changing climate and land use are increasing the severity and frequency of wildfires. The World Meteorological Organisation estimates that the number of global wildfires will rise by 50% by 2100.
This summer has seen wildfires raging across much of Europe too, with France battling its worst blazes for 75 years, tearing through an area the size of Paris.
A heatwave across the south of the continent has also sparked wildfires in Spain, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, causing widespread devastation.