By: Biftu Osman

Wildfires occur when fires either by a natural cause, or human sparked, spread rapidly across forests. They are more likely to happen and last for a longer period of time when the air and ground are hot and dry which is why wildfires thrive in the summer.

In Canada, wildfires are a common occurrence every summer with an average of 8000 wildfires per year. This year’s wildfires have become a hot topic these past few days. 437 current wildfires were active early in June and 248 of them are considered uncontrollable according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC).

Alberta, Nova Scotia and Quebec are the 3 provinces in Canada with the most active wildfires. As of the morning of Friday, June 9, an estimated 10.6 million acres of forest have been burned. The rapid increase in wildfires has affected the air quality and resulted in the abundance of smoke everywhere. This caused the air quality to dramatically decrease and spread across Canada, which then led to it seeping into the US as well.

The smoke that spread into the US affected about 16 states and an estimated 128 million people. The poor air quality was most prominent in New York and was ranked the worst air quality in the world on Wednesday, June 7th.

The areas, including the states in the US, that are affected by the smoke are supposed to clear out and improve the air quality in the next few days with rainfall. The areas that aren’t expecting rainfall will still be depending on firefighters to put out the fires.

With the vast amount of fires that have had to be extinguished, firefighters are running out of supplies and equipment. According to The New York Times, in attempts to fight off the wildfires, around 1,100 firefighters traveled to Canada from other countries from France to South Africa and Australia.