Canadian wildfire smoke to linger over Western Pa.

Canadian wildfire smoke is here to stay in Western Pennsylvania — at least for this week.

“Right now, it looks like it could be a decent portion of the week,” said Andrew Kienzle, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Moon.

By Thursday during the day, though, some rain is expected, he said, which will halt the hazy smoke.

“We expect the smoke to be kind of washed out by the rainfall,” Kienzle said.

Two main wildfires are bringing the smoke to Western Pennsylvania from two areas of Canada: Manitoba north of the Minnesota border and British Columbia/Alberta, according to Kienzle.

????Wildfire Smoke Impacts
Higher concentrations of wildfire smoke are expected to drift into the region later this afternoon and especially overnight. Most of this smoke will initially stay aloft, meaning hazy/milky skies will be the only noticeable effect today. pic.twitter.com/F9gMiBi9v2

— NWS Pittsburgh (@NWSPittsburgh) June 2, 2025

The smoke will be much more noticeable by Tuesday in Western Pennsylvania, he said.

“We’re expecting the smoke to increase as you move through the overnight hours tonight,” Kienzle said.

Smoke fluctuation

While the wildfire smoke this week won’t be anything like June 2023, Kienzle said this year has already seen more than 2024 at this time.

“It was a much less intense fire season for them,” he said of Canada last year. “Because of that, we are ahead of last year’s pace … returning to more active after what was a more run-of-the-mill season last year.”

The 2023 Canadian wildfire season was “severe,” Kienzle said — resulting in three times the number of acres usually burned in a year.

The year-to-date number for 2025 is about a third of the acreage it was at this point in 2023, according to Kienzle.

Wildfires in 2023 were much closer and more highly concentrated, which is why that year was so much worse.

“They’ll just be lower concentrations of smoke because we’re further removed from the actual source,” Kienzle said of this year. “We are not expecting it to be nearly as intense.”

A lot of Canadian wildfires happen in remote or sparse areas, he said, so it’s hard to fight them before they’ve already grown.

“There’s not people to see the wildfires right when they start,” Kienzle said. “(It’s) tough to get resources up there.”

Staying safe

Kienzle said not many safety precautions need to be taken as of now in Western Pennsylvania.

“Right now, some of the thickest wildfire smoke is over the upper Midwest, Minnesota and Wisconsin (areas),” he said, so there’s not too much degradation in air quality in the Pittsburgh area. “It likely won’t be to the level at which we will really need to be concerned about it.”

Kienzle’s suggestion was for people in sensitive groups to limit exertion outside.

Sensitive groups can include those with asthma, elderly people, people on oxygen or people with pre-existing conditions.

The average person not in any of those groups is good to be out and about doing daily activities.

Moving forward, he said, it’s possible wildfire smoke will stick around.

“Canada actually has a pretty significant wildfire season most years,” Kienzle said.

Though it’s difficult to say for sure that every year moving forward will be impacted, he said there’s definitely potential. The severity will vary year by year.

“You need fires out of control that are producing smoke and atmospheric conditions to bring smoke down to (the) U.S.,” Kienzle said.

Wildfire smoke seems more noticeable overall now in the wake of 2023, he said, despite it being around before that.

“The 2023 event opened everybody’s eyes to it,” Kienzle said. “A lot more people are talking about it.”