Record wildfire season impacting air quality trends in Midwest, new study shows
MINNEAPOLIS — There may be snow on the ground now but state health and environmental officials continue to dig into the data from 2023's Summer of Smoke and its impact on our air quality.
"This year we had days of orange, and then it would be red, and then days of orange again," Matt Taraldsen, a supervisory meteorologist at Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, explained to WCCO. "This year we also had the smoke that would leave just a little bit of residual behind and would produce ozone following a smoke intrusion."
SUMMER OF SMOKE: Protecting yourself and loved ones from wildfire pollution
The smoke, of course, was the result of a record wildfire season in Canada, where roughly 6,000 individual fires torched an area that combined is larger than Florida.
In 2023, the majority of days in Minnesota registered Air Quality Index scores above normal, including 49 that were orange or higher.
"It's definitely something we need to keep an eye on, and if we continue to have these wildfire events year after year, that could definitely reverse those trends," Taraldsen added.
New research suggests the record amount of smoke is either reversing or stalling several gains made across the country when it comes to reducing air pollution.
In Canada, authorities are hoping for an increase in precipitation this winter and beyond to reduce the risk of a repeat in 2024.
SUMMER OF SMOKE: The Minnesotans helping keep Canada's wildfires at bay
"Preparing and responding to wildfires or developing communities to be resilient to wildfires is one thing, but stopping wildfire is completely another issue that there probably isn't an answer to," Kim Conners, Executive Director of the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, told WCCO News. "How do we ensure that communities and citizens understand what this all means."