Heavy smoke expected to hit the US as dangerous Canadian wildfires force 17K to evacuate

USA Today

3 days ago

Heavy smoke expected to hit the US as dangerous Canadian wildfires force 17K to evacuate Blazes in the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan have forced thousands to evacuate. Smoke from the fires is expected to waft over the U.S. through the weekend.
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'Massive smoke plumes' from wildfires cover Canadian provinces
Timelapse satellite imagery shows wildfires and thick smoke over two Canadian provinces on Monday, May 26. CSU/CIRA & NOAA via Storyful
CSU/CIRA & NOAA
As many as 17,000 people in Canada are being evacuated as active wildfires have charred hundreds of thousands of acres in the country, officials said, threatening to waft heavy smoke over the northern United States.
Rising heat, winds, and dry air sparked blazes in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, according to the country's Department of Natural Resources. Residents in the United States are expected to face poor air quality from the fires as soon as May 30.
"This is a very serious situation," Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said at a news conference on May 29. "I do fear things are going to deteriorate with the weather we have ahead of us in the days ahead."
Active blazes have burned 696,000 acres in Saskatchewan and 173,000 acres in Manitoba, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. A total of nearly 1.5 million acres have burned across the two provinces so far this year, according to the fire center.
Moe said he expected the fires to worsen until a two or three-day rainfall event.
Smoke from the blazes is expected to fall heavily over Midwestern states, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, and cut across the country to reach the Carolinas by May 31, according to FireSmoke Canada, a team of forecasters at the University of British Columbia.
Canadian authorities have called in the military to help with the "sheer scale" of the evacuations, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said at a news conference.
"We're talking about hours instead of days to move this amount of people," said Kinew, adding it was the largest evacuation "seen in most people's living memory."
The two provinces have declared a state of emergency. The blazes also stretch into the province of Ontario, where 130,000 acres have burned.
Canadian wildfires, again
The smoke drifting over the United States from the Canadian blazes comes after American cities in the Northeast, Midwest, and Plains encountered unhealthy air quality due to the nightmarish wildfires in Canada in 2023.
Over 6,000 blazes left more than 37 million acres burned, an area larger than England, according to Canada's natural resources department.
The American Lung Association's 2025 "State of the Air Report" found that a growing number of Americans were living with poor air quality due to the Canadian fires, even as other means of pollution were reduced. The report was based on data through 2023.
As of May 29, 1,500 blazes have charred 1.8 million acres across Canada.
'We were not prepared': Canada fought nightmarish wildfires as smoke became US problem
What to expect in the United States
Smoke from the blazes is expected to waft over large parts of the United States starting in the Midwest, according to forecasters at FireSmoke Canada.
Minnesota began feeling the impact of the blazes on May 29, according to the state's Pollution Control Agency. Upper Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were expected to experience poor air quality by the evening.
Smoke is expected to hit the Ohio Valley on May 30 and the Carolinas by the early hours of Saturday.
Minnesota authorities warned of unhealthy levels of exposure to fine particles from the wildfires. Symptoms include everything from shortness of breath to heart attack and stroke.