Smoke from wildfires in Canada is once again shrouding parts of the United States — cities like Chicago and Milwaukee — with unhealthy air, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Parts of the plume have reached as far as Europe. The bulk of the smoke is forecasted to drift eastward across North America and thin out.

As of Thursday afternoon, Canada was battling more than 200 blazes, the majority in western provinces like British Columbia and Alberta, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. In Canada, the fires forced more than 27,000 people to evacuate, but the smoke is “impacting aerial operations for both suppression and evacuation flights.”

This is all too familiar. Canada faced a massive spate of wildfires in 2023 and in 2024 that similarly sent clouds

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