Wildfire Smoke Is Coming for the US Again. We’re Not Ready.
As long as people keep burning fossil fuels and spewing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the blazes will become more frequent and intense.
Much of the country still isn’t ready for another smoky summer.
Photographer: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
Many Americans were surprised last year when smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away turned their air toxic. There’s no excuse for anybody to be surprised when it happens again — possibly in just a couple of months.
Canada’s emergency preparedness minister has warned repeatedly that an unusually dry and warm winter, combined with what might be an unusually dry and warm spring and summer, could lead to another terrible wildfire season. “With the heat and dryness across the country we can expect that the wildfire season will start sooner and end later and potentially be more explosive,” Harjit Sajjan said in a press conference last week.