TORONTO — Thousands of people have evacuated their homes across parts of the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where officials have declared a state of emergency and crews are working to contain dozens of out-of-control wildfires.
The smoke has spread to the Upper Midwest of the United States and is expected to last through the first few days of June as multiple rounds of smoke are set to blow south, Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency warned.
The fires are intensifying, and two people were killed after a small town in Manitoba was engulfed in flames. Their deaths represented an ominous start to Canada’s wildfire season, which usually runs from March until October. Here’s what to know.
Where are the wildfires burning?
About 1.7 million acres have burned across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Manitoba’s out-of-control wildfires are largely burning on its northwest border with Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, the fire activity is also mostly concentrated in the north.
About 17,000 people were ordered to leave and more communities can expect the same in the coming days, said Wab Kinew, the premier of Manitoba. Evacuations across those sparsely populated rural regions in Manitoba, home to several First Nations reserves, were assisted by the Canadian armed forces in cases where conditions were more dangerous.
But people in Manitoba’s Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, also known as Pukatawagan, an Indigenous community of about 3,000 people, are raising the alarm as the evacuation drags on. The army is facing delays caused by smoky conditions, and about 2,000 people have not yet been able to leave.
Thousands more residents fled 17 communities in Saskatchewan. The province has seen almost double the amount of wildfires so far this year, at 211, compared with its five-year average.
Elsewhere in Canada, fire activity has struck the northeast region of British Columbia, parts of Alberta and northwest Ontario.
Where is the smoke affecting air quality?
In the Upper Midwest of the United States, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota have issued air quality warnings as smoke from the prairie wildfires is dragged south by a cold front.
Air quality has deteriorated as higher amounts of particulate, like soot, ash and dust, are trapped in the air and blown across thousands of miles.
Officials warned residents to modify their outdoor activity, especially for higher risk groups, like children, older adults, pregnant people and those with heart or lung conditions.
In 2023, fires from Quebec caused the skies across large parts of New York to turn an apocalyptic orange. So far, the prairie fires have blanketed some of the Midwest in a gray haze.
What caused the fires?
So far, 98 of Manitoba’s 106 wildfires have been caused by people, government data shows. Four occurred naturally, probably as a result of lightning, and another four are under investigation.
Lightning, which is more common when temperatures are higher, is usually the cause of wildfires that burn the most land. In 2023, scientists at Canada’s natural resources department found that lightning sparked fires that burned 93% of the total wildfire area, and the remaining seven percent of the area burned from human causes.
This year, so far, a majority of the wildfires burning in both provinces have been caused by humans, according to officials and government data, but their effect on the total area burned has not yet been determined. It’s unclear how many of those were accidental.
How is Canada responding?
Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, has convened an emergency response group to address the wildfires. The government has also promised to match donations to the Canadian Red Cross, lend military aid and provide other support.
By this time last year, the Canadian government had hosted a wildfire briefing with senior public safety officials to lay out how it was mobilizing for the season, including funding plans to support international crews, train Indigenous firefighters and buy equipment.
Will the wildfires get worse?
Strong winds and a lack of rain in the forecast mean conditions are likely to get worse over the coming days, meteorologists warn. Nighttime typically provides a reprieve, as temperatures fall, but the overnight weather has remained hot and unrelenting.
Climate change, researchers have found, is exacerbating those conditions.
Both provinces have seen intense, above-average heat this spring. That, combined with a stationary high-pressure system in central Canada, which causes air to sink downward and dry out, has primed conditions, according to Climate Central, a nonprofit research group.
Experts say June is critical for wildfire forecasting because that is when western Canada tends to receive most of its summer rainfall, which could partially determine the course of the rest of wildfire season.
Eight firefighters were killed in 2023, Canada’s worst wildfire season on record, but there were no civilian deaths. That year, 7,100 wildfires burned 37 million acres, an area larger than the size of England, according to the Canadian government. Scientists later called the wildfires the top carbon emitter of 2023.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
