900 Canadian wildfires of unprecedented intensity cause poor air quality again in Nebraska

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – At least 20 states have been under air quality alerts this past weekend into Monday, including much of Nebraska.

We’re no stranger to smoke and prescribed burns in the summer, but the fires across Canada are still raging on.

“Yes, we’ve seen fires before, but they haven’t lasted in this intensity for basically a month and a half now,” said Russell Hadan, environmental supervisor for the Douglas County Health Department.

Alerts for smoke in our area go back as far as April.

Hadan said it’s the most he’s ever seen in his 19 years working for the department.

“Sometimes we have a prescribed fire in our area, down in Kansas, and that’ll be temporary for like a week or two,” Hadan said. “They’ll do a weekend burn, and then we’ll have smoke. But this is something different where these are uncontrolled fires.”

Experts said the problem will continue.

Weather plays a large role in bringing this smoke from Canada down through the Midwest and into Nebraska.

Our current weather pattern has supported the transport of air right from some of the most active spots.

Courtesy: National Center for Atmospheric Research

“Air is coming in from the northwest, and that’s where all the fires are,” said Clint Aegerter, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Omaha. “Over the next couple of days, that low starts to push off to the east a little bit, so that northwest flow will be pointing into areas to our east. So it may improve here but maybe stick around a little bit to areas farther to the east.”

Through the middle of July, almost 25 million acres have burned.

About 900 fires are active, with 600 of them considered “out of control,” according to Natural Resources Canada.

Courtesy: Natural Resources Canada

But these conditions change from day to day, and models for smoke concentrations are only reliable about two days out.

“It’s tough to know how well the fires will be controlled and that type of thing,” Aegerter said. “It’s really tough to know how much smoke there will be and how much smoke impacts there will be beyond a couple of days.”

Air quality alerts are set to continue for Lincoln and Lancaster County through early Tuesday afternoon.