When a visitor from Toronto expressed concern Sunday about air quality due to smoke from the wildfires in Quebec, I thought he was overreacting.
But on Tuesday, when I received a message from Carrie Plaskett, president of the NOTL Soccer Club, that all club activity that evening was being cancelled due to poor air quality, it became real.
As a member organization of the Ontario Soccer Association, our local soccer club is required to follow all of the parent association’s directives. A message had been sent out Tuesday to all Niagara referees from the provincial association, which had declared an emergency situation. “Due to all the forest fires burning in western (sic) Canada,” said the message, “the smoke from these fires has now drifted into Ontario. The air quality from the people that measure and rate air quality has said that it could be dangerous for some people to play outdoor sports tonight.”
In addition, Environment Canada placed much of Southern Ontario under a special air quality statement Tuesday morning, excluding some of the southwest area of the province. “Air quality and visibility due to wildfire smoke can fluctuate over short distances and can vary considerably from hour to hour,” said Environment Canada. “Wildfire smoke can be harmful to everyone’s health even at low concentrations.”
By mid-afternoon a murky haze and a smoky scent seemed to have descended upon Niagara-on-the-Lake. It created an eerie feeling, especially in light of the fact that we are so far away from the actual fires. Town councillor Erwin Wiens, who owns farms in NOTL, explains that the haze and smoke may have some negative impact on local farmers. “I’m not a meteorologist,” he says to preface, “but when forest fires start getting their own weather patterns, it negatively impacts precipitation. It also started dragging down the colder weather from up north.”
Wiens points to the frost we experienced right after the Victoria Day long weekend. “That was from the forest fires in Alberta, forcing the weather patterns to change,” he explains. “When we have hazy skies it forces precipitation away. With so much hot air going upwards, it creates its own weather system.”
Tuesday afternoon, meteorologists were saying they expected the haze and smell to stay with us in Niagara for three or four days. “It won’t have a major effect on our crops,” says Wiens, “but it will have an effect. It can be even worse when it happens earlier in the spring, creating late frost.”
t’s hard not to connect this uncomfortable emergency situation with the deteriorated state of our environment. And what makes that worrisome is that there is every indication this kind of emergency, which I have never experienced in my lifetime spent living in Southern and for a short time Eastern Ontario, is something we will face repeatedly over the next few years.
A Canadian Forest Services publication called Climate Change and the Future Environment in Ontario, published in 2005, predicted that increased temperatures will lead to a drier forest floor. That will result in an estimated 24 per cent increase in the number of lightning fires by 2040 and an 80 per cent increase by 2090. The number of fires caused by humans is expected to increase by seven and 26 per cent by those same two benchmark years. Overall, the report predicts a 30 per cent increase in the number of fires that escape initial attack by 2040, and an 80 per cent increase by 2090.
Any firefighter will tell you those numbers are distressing. The increases will make it more difficult and more expensive for firefighters to quell the blazes, leading to more smoke and haze drifting into Niagara. If those predictions, which are qualified as ‘conservative’ in the report, are true, we can expect to face more days locked up in our houses, facing dangerous Air Quality Health Index numbers.
During these smoky, hazy conditions this week, meteorologists recommend people with lung or heart disease, older adults, children and pregnant women take precautions to protect their health and reduce their exposure to smoke. Thank goodness we all got used to wearing masks during the pandemic.
