Massive wildfires in the Canadian province of Ontario are affecting air quality, hundreds evacuated
-
The northwestern Ontario currently has some 19 fires burning, three of which are large and mostly out of control.
The largest fire, which has been dubbed Red Lake 23, is 8 kilometers south of Keewaywin and currently 71,993 ha (~720 km2) in size according to Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), which is a government ministry of the Canadian province of Ontario.
The Ontario wildfires are producing large amounts of particulate matter which is affecting air quality, as you can see in the Copernicus PM 2.5 forecast visualised on Windy platform and showing off the scale levels.
There are air quality alerts in effect for the Kenora region, Red Lake, Sandy Lake, Pikangikum, Ear Falls, Pickle Lake, Sioux Lookout and down into Thunder Bay.
Red Lake 23 fire forced the evacuation of the community of Keewaywin First Nation and surrounding communities earlier this past week.
Here are the latest Sentinel-2 images (acquired 5 June 2019)
It’s not only the Ontario region that’s affected by Ontario wildfires. Surrounding regions’ air quallity is affected too, including northern Minnesota.
