The upper midwest is experiencing Air Quality Index numbers one would expect to see in Baghdad or Jakarta.
Get used to it. This is a permanent change.
Copernicus – EU – Image of the Day:
Canada is currently facing an intense fire season, with hundreds of active wildfires across Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, prompting the evacuation of thousands of residents. Smoke from these fires has severely degraded air quality both locally and across borders, including the United States.
This false colour image, acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites on 3 August 2025, shows the smoke cloud from the wildfires engulfing skies over Canada and the US.
According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), June and July 2025 saw severe wildfire activity in Canada, with daily total wildfire intensity and emissions consistently above the 2003-2024 average throughout the summer.
Copernicus data are critical for tracking wildfire activity and smoke transport, supporting emergency response and global air quality monitoring.
The skies over Michigan are finally clearing, at least for now, as the state emerges from yet another stretch of air quality alerts due to heavy, hazy smoke from Canadian wildfires.
But climate change means we’ll likely be here again, experts say, just like we were in the summer of 2023. And even healthy people are impacted by repeated exposure to wildfire smoke, said Dr. Ike Okereke, chief of thoracic surgery at Henry Ford Health, who researches the effects of air pollution.
“It affects us all, not only ‘patients’ or people with a history of disease,” he said.
That’s why it’s a good idea to avoid exercising or working outdoors when the air quality is bad, “because the faster and deeper you breathe, as you would with exercise or physical labor, you increase the amount of wildfire smoke you take into your body,” according to an advisory from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. “Likewise, the length of time you are outside increases the amount of smoke you are exposed to.”
You’ve also probably heard about groups that are “unusually sensitive” to wildfire smoke, including those with heart disease, asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and vulnerable groups like kids, teens, adults over the age of 60, and pregnant people.
Those groups are more likely to feel immediate health effects: one study found asthma-related emergency room visits in New York shot up 80% during the worst of the 2023 wildfire smoke episodes.
“But we also know that if the air quality worsens enough, that everybody may be at risk,” said Dr. Daniel Ouellette, chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Henry Ford Health. “And in Detroit in the last week, there have been periods of time when the air wasn’t safe for anyone, and everybody should take precautions.”
Even for healthy people, the fine particles of smoke pollution (called particulate matter 2.5, or PM2.5, which are also produced by industrial emissions and vehicle exhaust) can accumulate in our airways, irritating the lungs and potentially even changing our gene activity, which can lead to health problems.
“We are affected in the short term, [and] we are affected in the long term,” Okereke said. “It affects our vulnerability and risk of getting benign [non-cancerous] disease, but then also malignant disease.”
“This false colour image, acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites on 3 August 2025, shows the smoke cloud from the wildfires engulfing skies over Canada and the US.”
OK, now those have got to go.