Wildfires explained: Why is smoky air so bad for you + what you can do to prevent forest fires

Wildfires are wreaking havoc in Canada right now. Among those affected are not only communities situated close to forest fires, but even towns and cities located hundreds of miles away.

As smoke from fires in Quebec and northern Ontario spread, the air quality is getting worse. A smoky haze has descended upon many Canadian communities, including southwestern Ontario, and is now wreaking havoc in New York and other eastern U.S. states.

So, what is causing wildfires to be especially deadly this year? Should we get out the masks once again? And why is the sky shrouded in a sickly yellow haze? Here is the Star’s coverage of this year’s wildfire season so far, with stories and explainers to help answer readers’ questions.

A haze slowly settled over Ottawa and Toronto this week as smoke from the Quebec wildfires drifted southward. Environment Canada is warning people that they could feel its impact over the next few days.

On Monday, northerly winds pushed smoke plumes from Quebec’s wildfires southward, causing poor air quality, the Star’s Marissa Birnie reported.

The moon’s reddish colour was also related to the wildfire smoke, which can also affect the colour of the sun.

Canada is witnessing an extraordinary spring fire season. Wildfires are currently burning from coast to coast, goosed by dry, hot and windy conditions. As climate changes progress unabated, we can expect to see more of those conditions — and consequently, more frequent and severe wildfires.

The need for change is urgent. While action is needed on several levels, the Star’s Manuela Vega compiled a list of changes you can take as an individual. These include:

As wildfires become more severe, continued exposure to smoke will begin to affect the full breadth of the population: not just the elderly and children and those with pre-existing health conditions, but the young and the healthy as well.

Microscopic particles — known as PM2.5 — present in smoke can easily sift down through air passages to the depths of the lungs. At that size, it can also pass into the blood, causing a system-wide inflammation that can exacerbate heart conditions and potentially cause cancers, reported Star journalist Steve McKinley.

Those particles are capable of infiltrating almost every organ in the body, an expert told McKinley.

The Star’s Joshua Chong compiled a list of self-care precautions you should take amid the ongoing smoky conditions. The steps included:

The Kit’s Katherine Lalancette worked with a dermatologist to compile a list of recommended products for fending off irritation and even premature aging while wildfire smoke continues.

Additionally, here are some steps to protect your pets from the smoky air.

In recent years, summers in Western Canada have come to be associated with stretches of smoke, thick clots of ash and tiny bits of debris thrown up by wildfires that block the light and fill the lungs.

Now, as the smoke has arrived in Toronto, the issue is getting unprecedented national attention, the Star’s Alex Boyd reported from the Prairies.

From familiarity with fire vocabulary to learning to read the Air Quality Index and online smoke reports, Boyd writes about several lessons to be learnt from the western provinces.

When urban areas such as cities allow housing construction in nearby wooded regions like the communities of Tantallon outside Halifax in Nova Scotia, houses just become fuel for fire, reported McKinley, while covering the massive wildfires that started raging in the province in May.

The Tantallon wildfires prompted the evacuation of 16,000 Halifax area residents, razing more than 150 homes.

“Rather than a wildfire control problem, we have a problem with homes and structures that are way too easily ignited by small embers or just creeping low flames,” an urban fire expert told McKinley.

Fighting a wind-whipped fire, like the blaze threatening residents on the outskirts of Halifax, is like going into battle against a monster.

Less than a week before those blazes in Nova Scotia erupted, the province deemed its wildland fire situation to be at a “manageable level” — good enough, at least, to allow it to send 20 of its firefighters to help in other provinces.

While there is no shortage of young people ready to take up a hose, shovel and hard hat for the summer, there have been countrywide problems hanging on to senior-level firefighters who have the training and experience needed to lead the fight against the flames, McKinley reported.

Wildfires destroy infrastructure and cause billions in damages, but these annual blazes also have long-term effects, including devastating ecological impacts.

In an explainer about such fires in the Canadian Prairies, a region that is long accustomed to wildfires, Star journalist Omar Mosleh explains how these worsening fires change the landscape and prevent regrowth of forests.

In British Columbia, the increase in scorched earth is also leading to more flooding and mudslides, experts say.

In this episode of the Star’s podcast This Matters, producer Brian Bradley interviews an expert in Emergency Management and Fire Science, about this year’s exceptional wildfire season.

They discuss how the fire season is starting earlier and going later with hotter, dryer weather thanks to climate change.

If fires continue to burn as they have, by the end of the season in August, the country could be looking at more scorched forest than has ever been recorded, McKinley reported.

Right now, there are significant fires burning in every single province and territory — barring Prince Edward Island and Nunavut.

Already this year, there have been 2,214 wildfires that have blackened more than 3.3 million hectares of Canadian wildland, the equivalent of more than five million football fields.

Akrit Michael is a Toronto-based digital producer for the Star’s Digital Desk. Reach him via email: amichael@thestar.ca