Heavy Smoke From Wildfires Blankets The U.S. Midwest And Northeast, Prompting Evacuations

Thousands of visitors were told to evacuate a remote Minnesota wilderness area accessible only by boat as wildfires send dangerously heavy smoke over the U.S. Midwest and Northeast this week.

More than 100 wildfires are burning in Canada, where a train crew in northern Ontario filmed themselves surrounded by flames before being safely evacuated. Winds are carrying the smoke southeast.

Warnings about unhealthy air conditions Wednesday extended from Minnesota through Toronto and into New York. Unusually hot summer temperatures were expected, too.

The best advice is to stay indoors to avoid both the smoke and the extreme heat, said Tyler Hasenstein, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

“Those two things coinciding with each other is not good from a health perspective,” he said.

In far northeastern Minnesota, rangers were trying to warn people that the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness was closed Tuesday because about 17 fires caused by lightning more than a week ago were spreading through the vast wilderness accessible primarily by canoe.

Rangers estimated anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 people were inside the 1.1-million-acre (445,000-hectare) wilderness, which is almost the size of Delaware, Superior National Forest spokesperson Joy VanDrie said.

“It’s an arduous job,” VanDrie said of rangers and campers having to canoe for hours or even carry their boats over land to evacuate.

No injuries or deaths have been reported. Rangers were going through every lake and waterway and officials estimated they had about 90% of the people out Wednesday.

Campers rescued this week said skies quickly darkened from smoke and they could feel the heat as they paddled or were taken by boat to safety.

Jan Bailey was camping with her husband, daughter, son-in-law, two grandchildren and three dogs when they noticed wispy smoke on the horizon. Two hours later, they could see a raging firestorm. A paddleboarder with a satellite phone fled to their campsite and they called forestry rangers who sent a boat to rescue them and others.

“We had fire on both sides of us at that time,” Bailey told Minnesota Public Radio. “So we’re just weaving between the lakes. It’s a little smoky. Campsites are going up.”

Even authorities in Canada pitched in. They rescued two groups of youth campers Wednesday who had crossed the border. One group was stuck on an isolated sandbar, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said.

VanDrie didn’t know when the area might reopen. Minnesota officials said some fires in the Boundary Waters will be allowed to burn indefinitely but will be monitored to ensure they don’t threaten people or property.

Dan Westervelt, associate professor at Columbia University’s Climate School, said severe drought conditions combined with heat in Canada and the U.S. have created “a perfect storm for really dry conditions to provide a lot of fuel for these wildfires to burn.” Research shows warming temperatures from burning coal, oil and gas are making fires more frequent and intense.

High levels of fine particulate matter in the air from wildfire smoke may be unhealthy for sensitive groups, such as children and people with heart or lung conditions. The particulates can cause shortness of breath, coughing, dizziness or fatigue and aggravate heart and lung diseases and other chronic health issues.

Experts suggest wearing a N95 mask if you have to be outside and keeping your indoor air cleaner by closing windows and running an air purifier or air conditioner.

It’s been a particularly busy and deadly fire season in the U.S. About four dozen large fires are currently burning across 15 states, from Minnesota and North Carolina to Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon and California, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Prolonged drought and record low snowpack levels combined to make conditions ripe for rapid fire growth.

In Minnesota, officials warned large fires could burn for months. In Minneapolis, the high Wednesday was expected to be 96 degrees F (36 C) and temperatures above 90 F (32 C) were expected the rest of the week.

“It could well be we’re having significant fires throughout the summer until we have snow. Snow would be a good thing,” said Patty Thielen, director of the state Department of Natural Resources.

The smoke was so thick that the sky turned orange like Mars in northern Minnesota, said Matt Taraldsen, supervisory meteorologist with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Part of the danger of the heat and smoke there is that only about half the buildings have air conditioning, Taraldsen said. Residents usually would open windows to keep cool “but when there’s dense smoke, you can’t do that,” he said.

Taraldsen’s mother said she woke up in her Duluth, Minnesota, home Wednesday morning and everything smelled like a campfire. When she opened her door, her eyes watered and she had to use her inhaler to ease her asthma.

Typically, Theresa Taraldsen said, she can see the St. Louis River from her yard but it was all a white wall of smoke Wednesday.

“You literally couldn’t see nothing,” she said.

Officials in Michigan and Wisconsin warned residents about air quality issues that could last for days. People in New York reported smelling smoke Wednesday afternoon and the problems extended even to Maine, where residents were reporting a yellowish and brownish color in the sky.

The most intense smoke could spread as far south as Washington, D.C., by midday Thursday.

Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan and Jeffrey Collins contributed to this report.

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