More smoke from Canadian wildfires is expected to make its way through Maine this week, keeping air quality down across the state.

Over the weekend, the smoke triggered an air quality alert in the state designating conditions as “unhealthy for sensitive groups” because of particulate pollution. While those alerts have since been lessened to “moderate,” it may stay that way for some time.

Martha Webster, an air quality meteorologist with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, said Monday that her department is forecasting the air quality to remain in the “moderate” range at least into Tuesday morning.

“There is another form of smoke that is expected to come in,” Webster said. “We believe it will also be in the moderate range, but we will revise (Tuesday) morning if it ends up coming in heavier.”

With more smoke on the horizon, Webster says, Maine could hover in that “moderate” category for much of this week.

STAYING SAFE

When air quality levels are in the “moderate” range, people sensitive to the effects — such as older adults, young children or people with asthma — are advised to limit prolonged or heavy exertion outside.

“If they’re coughing or have shortness of breath, that’s a sign they should take it a little easier,” Webster said.

Webster said even those who aren’t especially vulnerable to poor air quality should pay attention to how their bodies are responding to it.

Smoke can be difficult to predict, Webster said. Weather plays a critical role, and plumes of smoke that pass through can vary in size and strength. But one advantage for forecasters is smoke’s visibility.

“Ozone is a little hard to tell if it’s present because you can’t really see it, but smoke, you can,” Webster said. “If the visibility is not as good as usual, that means smoke is present, and you may want to be even more careful.”

The best way to stay in tune with the air quality, Webster said, is through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow program. People can sign up for email alerts or utilize a mobile app to stay in the loop. While most weather apps include air quality advisories, AirNow is “the most trusted source of air quality information,” Webster said, and is where Maine DEP and other states submit their air quality forecasts.

ARE WILDFIRES BURNING MORE FREQUENTLY?

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, the number of wildfires in the U.S. so far this year is higher than normal — nearly 40,000 as of July 28 — but the amount of land those fires are covering is below the 10-year average to this point, with just over 3 million acres burned so far this year.

As of Monday, there were 43 large, active fires covering nearly 700,000 acres across 12 U.S. states, according to the NIFC.

Canada, on the other hand, has seen worse wildfires than usual — much worse.

More than 3,300 Canadian wildfires have burned through nearly 14.5 million acres of land this year as of July 23, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. That’s over double the 10-year average by this point in the year and is already more than the country saw in all of 2024.

2023 was an especially bad year for wildfires in Canada, with over 42.7 million acres burned — more than double the country’s previous record, set in 1989. Other than that outlier, the 14.5 million acres so far this year are the most since 1995, according to the CIFFC.

Webster said that, for many years, Maine did not see a lot of wildfire smoke.

“Of course, 2023 was the big year,” she said. “That was an absolutely awful year.”

While not as bad, Maine still saw a significant amount of smoke in 2024 and is feeling it again this year.

“Right now, it looks like, as one smoke plume starts to leave, it doesn’t totally clean out, and the next one moves in,” Webster said of this year’s fires. “I would encourage people to pay attention to the forecast and how their bodies are when they’re outside for the rest of the week.”