Heavy smoke from wildfires blankets the US Midwest and Northeast,
prompting evacuations
[July 16, 2026]
By DORANY PINEDA and JACQUELINE GANUN
Thousands of visitors were told to evacuate a remote Minnesota
wilderness area accessible only by boat as wildfires send dangerously
heavy smoke over the U.S. Midwest and Northeast this week.
More than 100 wildfires are burning in Canada, where a train crew in
northern Ontario filmed themselves surrounded by flames before being
safely evacuated. Winds are carrying the smoke southeast.
Warnings about unhealthy air conditions Wednesday extended from
Minnesota through Toronto and into New York. Unusually hot summer
temperatures were expected, too.
The best advice is to stay indoors to avoid both the smoke and the
extreme heat, said Tyler Hasenstein, meteorologist with the National
Weather Service in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
“Those two things coinciding with each other is not good from a health
perspective,” he said.
Rangers try to get thousands of campers out of remote Minnesota
wilderness
In far northeastern Minnesota, rangers were trying to warn people that
the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness was closed Tuesday because
about 17 fires caused by lightning more than a week ago were spreading
through the vast wilderness accessible primarily by canoe.
Rangers estimated anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 people were inside the
1.1-million-acre (445,000-hectare) wilderness, which is almost the size
of Delaware, Superior National Forest spokesperson Joy VanDrie said.
“It’s an arduous job,” VanDrie said of rangers and campers having to
canoe for hours or even carry their boats over land to evacuate.
No injuries or deaths have been reported. Rangers were going through
every lake and waterway and officials estimated they had about 90% of
the people out Wednesday.
Campers rescued this week said skies quickly darkened from smoke and
they could feel the heat as they paddled or were taken by boat to
safety.
Jan Bailey was camping with her husband, daughter, son-in-law, two
grandchildren and three dogs when they noticed wispy smoke on the
horizon. Two hours later, they could see a raging firestorm. A
paddleboarder with a satellite phone fled to their campsite and they
called forestry rangers who sent a boat to rescue them and others.
“We had fire on both sides of us at that time,” Bailey told Minnesota
Public Radio. “So we’re just weaving between the lakes. It’s a little
smoky. Campsites are going up."
Even authorities in Canada pitched in. They rescued two groups of youth
campers Wednesday who had crossed the border. One group was stuck on an
isolated sandbar, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said.
VanDrie didn’t know when the area might reopen. Minnesota officials said
some fires in the Boundary Waters will be allowed to burn indefinitely
but will be monitored to ensure they don’t threaten people or property.
Severe drought and heat have led to a busy wildfire season
Dan Westervelt, associate professor at Columbia University’s Climate
School, said severe drought conditions combined with heat in Canada and
the U.S. have created “a perfect storm for really dry conditions to
provide a lot of fuel for these wildfires to burn.” Research shows
warming temperatures from burning coal, oil and gas are making fires
more frequent and intense.
High levels of fine particulate matter in the air from wildfire smoke
may be unhealthy for sensitive groups, such as children and people with
heart or lung conditions. The particulates can cause shortness of
breath, coughing, dizziness or fatigue and aggravate heart and lung
diseases and other chronic health issues.
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A plumes of smoke from the Camp Fire hang in the air over Moose Lake
as multiple wildfires burn in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness, Tuesday, July 14, 2026. (Anthony Souffle/Minnesota Star
Tribune via AP)
Experts suggest wearing a N95 mask if you have to be outside and
keeping your indoor air cleaner by closing windows and running an
air purifier or air conditioner.
It's been a particularly busy and deadly fire season in the U.S.
About four dozen large fires are currently burning across 15 states,
from Minnesota and North Carolina to Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon
and California, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Prolonged drought and record low snowpack levels combined to make
conditions ripe for rapid fire growth.
Smoke spreads as officials warn wildfires could burn for months
In Minnesota, officials warned large fires could burn for months. In
Minneapolis, the high Wednesday was expected to be 96 degrees F (36
C) and temperatures above 90 F (32 C) were expected the rest of the
week.
“It could well be we’re having significant fires throughout the
summer until we have snow. Snow would be a good thing,” said Patty
Thielen, director of the state Department of Natural Resources.
The smoke was so thick that the sky turned orange like Mars in
northern Minnesota, said Matt Taraldsen, supervisory meteorologist
with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Part of the danger of the heat and smoke there is that only about
half the buildings have air conditioning, Taraldsen said. Residents
usually would open windows to keep cool “but when there’s dense
smoke, you can’t do that,” he said.
Taraldsen's mother said she woke up in her Duluth, Minnesota, home
Wednesday morning and everything smelled like a campfire. When she
opened her door, her eyes watered and she had to use her inhaler to
ease her asthma.
Typically, Theresa Taraldsen said, she can see the St. Louis River
from her yard but it was all a white wall of smoke Wednesday.
“You literally couldn’t see nothing,” she said.
Officials in Michigan and Wisconsin warned residents about air
quality issues that could last for days. People in New York reported
smelling smoke Wednesday afternoon and the problems extended even to
Maine, where residents were reporting a yellowish and brownish color
in the sky.
The most intense smoke could spread as far south as Washington,
D.C., by midday Thursday.
___
Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan and Jeffrey Collins
contributed to this report.
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