Canada’s Fire Smoke Drifts Through Area

Wildfires burning in Canada sent a blanket of smoke over parts of Eastern Washington and North Idaho on Tuesday.

The U.S. Forest Service office in Sandpoint received several telephone calls about the smoke, with some residents worried Monday night’s lightning storm had sparked blazes in the mountains.

“We had a few strikes, but it was wet enough that we weren’t too worried about fires yet,” said Forest Service fire dispatcher Tom Rosenberg.

Instead, he said several hundred thousand acres of Alberta forestland have been burning out of control for several days. A northeast wind carried smoke from those blazes into the Idaho Panhandle Tuesday afternoon.

Dennis Bray, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Spokane, said a 1,000-acre fire near Nelson, B.C., is responsible for a lot of the haze in Spokane.

Winds from the north have pushed the smoke into this area and could continue doing so today. , DataTimes