Smoke from wildfires in Canada and Minnesota drifted towards Maryland in mid-July, turning skies hazy and causing some of the worst air quality the state has seen in three years.
Experts say it could be a rising pattern for the future.
“We had some fires that started to pop up around [July 12 or 13], I would say, that was triggered by thunderstorms in the area. So southwestern Ontario was sort of where we saw the bulk of those fires, with some also in northern Minnesota,” said James Boyle, an air quality meteorologist with the Maryland Department of the Environment.
Older adults, infants and young children, and people with respiratory issues such as asthma are most susceptible to the impacts of fine particulate pollution, Boyle said.
But when air quality is as poor as it was when wildfire smoke made its way to Maryland, the general population is at risk as well.
That fine particulate pollution, also known as PM 2.5, is small enough to make its way into your lungs and even your bloodstream.
During the last wildfire smoke event in 2023, hospital visits for heart and lung issues jumped almost 20% in the Baltimore area, according to a study by the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing.
Baltimore already has some of the highest asthma rates in the state.
Severe droughts and gusty winds create the perfect conditions for wildfires, climate change is making such events more common.
“We’ve certainly seen more impacts in terms of Canadian wildfires or Pacific wildfires in more recent years, and that’s generally linked to climate change, global warming,” Boyle said. “You see those sort of more extremes in weather. More heat, more drought, which can then lead to some of these extreme cases that we’ve seen.”
This is at least the third time in three years that Baltimore has faced wildfire smoke this bad, and there are still fires burning right now across the Northwest Territories and the Pacific Northwest.
Experts are trying to raise awareness for the growing prevalence of wildfires.
“We do things on our side as well in terms of just getting people informed, sending out tweets, sending out Instagram posts, trying to create videos and things like that, just to try to inform people,” Boyle said.
