Last night’s sunset, as seen from a west-bound ferry out of Elliott Bay, was like a goddamn Lisa Frank painting. The only thing missing was a cadre of dolphins frolicking in front of the boat (although, to be fair, ferries haven’t exactly been friendly to sea life this week). Still, while the sunset was gorgeous, the air quality was anything but.
Why? Blame Canada.
According to the Seattle Times and the National Weather Service in Seattle, last night’s haze and the resulting pink sky were due to wildfires currently burning across Alberta, Canada, nearly 700 miles from Seattle. The smoke has reached into Montana, which is over 1500 miles away, and as far east as Minnesota, almost 2,500 miles from the fire. Wildfires in the region have forced dozens of families from their homes in Alberta, and the City of Edmonton issued a health alert, urging children, the elderly, and the infirm to stay inside for the duration for the smokestorm. And it could be a while before things get better: It’s only May and conditions are ripe for a very smoky summer.
One of the difficulties of combating the wildfire problem is that smoke doesn’t respect state or national borders. Smoke from fires in Canada or California or Idaho can irritate lungs—and paint lovely sunsets—in Washington state. Department of Natural Resources Commissioner of Public Lands Hillary Franz told me in a recent interview that last year she approached authorities in British Columbia, Oregon, and California about sharing knowledge and expertise, but actually solving this problem is going to take significant coordination between U.S. states, the federal government, and Canada, where the average annual temperature has risen 1.7℃ in the past 70 years.
Still, we can’t wait for the surrounding areas to fix this problem for us, and leaders in Washington don’t seem to be taking the wildfire crisis all that seriously. The Legislature failed to pass a bill this session that would have increased property and casualty insurance tax rates by half a percent to fund wildfire fighting efforts and prevention. Right now, Washington only has 43 full-time firefighters, and the helicopters they use were built in the 1970s. According to Franz, the bill failed to pass due to lobbying by the insurance industry, but as the skies grow hazier and Lowe’s has another run on face masks, perhaps our legislators will reconsider. “When the sun is out and the sky is blue, it’s hard for people to remember what a crisis we have,” Franz said. It’s voters’ jobs to remind them.
