Revamp of Manitoba's air quality monitoring infrastructure needed for 'smokier future,' says expert

Manitoba is looking to expand the infrastructure it has to monitor air quality, a step experts say is important to better map pollution and its long-term health effects worsened by smoke billowing from wildfires.

"This isn't a problem that's going away," said Christopher Pascoe, a University of Manitoba associate professor whose research focuses on the impact of wildfire smoke on chronic respiratory diseases.

Thousands of people have been forced out of their homes by wildfires in Manitoba since May. It has been a record-breaking season where the province has been put under a state of emergency twice to address the influx of people fleeing from their home — some from worsening air quality.

Manitoba operates four air quality monitoring stations — two in Winnipeg, one each in Brandon and Flin Flon — that collect the dirt out of the air and measure the concentration of health-harming particles lingering in the environment.

Environment and Climate Change Canada said it draws data from those stations to forecast air quality. The department also pulls in information about contaminants in the air from low-cost sensors that have been installed independently by residents and communities through the province.

But Sarah Henderson, a scientific director of environmental health services at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, said there's an opportunity to better map pollution drifting from wildfire in the long-term by expanding the infrastructure Manitoba has to monitor air quality.

"Wildfires are highly episodic, highly unpredictable," Henderson said. "Four monitors doesn't tell the full story of what's going on when you're having wildfire smoke impacts."

Most of the infrastructure Environment Canada uses to forecast air quality in Manitoba is clustered in the southern part of the province.

According to an independently created map, which Environment Canada said shows the monitors meteorologists use to forecast air quality, there are roughly 10 stations or sensors north of Dauphin, Man., a city about 250 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

And all but at least two of these stations in northern Manitoba are in Flin Flon,Thompson and Churchill.

In remote or fly-in communities without sensors, Environment Canada said it relies on forecast models, weather observers in airports and satellite imaging to track wildfire smoke and predict its impact to air quality.

"But it would be even more accurate if we had an air quality monitor in the community," Henderson said.

"Smoke is really dynamic," she said. "Even within a couple of kilometres, the concentrations can be really different."

For instance, it is not rare for the two air quality stations in Winnipeg — which are less than four kilometres apart — to show different concentrations of air pollutants from wildfire smoke, said Pascoe.

"It can vary even across that relatively small distance," he said.

"Without access to that data it makes it more difficult to … really understand what the health effects of poor air are," Pascoe said. "Especially in the north where we've got vulnerable populations that are living right next to these burning forests."

One of the closest air quality monitors to Lynn Lake, a town in northwest Manitoba of around 600 people, is about 230 kilometres away in Flin Flon.

Henderson and Pascoe agree that the monitor wouldn't provide an accurate reading for the town's air quality given the distance and other models are used to forecast it and trigger warnings, such as one that put Lynn Lake on evacuation alert in late June.

Environment Canada said the town could get its air quality index after satellite imaging tracked the smoke that passes through it and found the closest monitor to measure the concentration of pollutants — bringing back the information to get the health risk combined with forecast models.

But "you do need more stations in areas where wildfire concern is highest," Pascoe said.

"Northern Manitoba … is such a large swath of area that you could have no air quality advisory in place because your air quality monitoring station in Flin Flon and Thompson says there's no air quality advisory," he said.

"But in other parts of the province, there could very well be an air quality advisory that isn't being picked up."

Planning for a 'smokier future'

Environment Canada said they are trying to expand the number of air quality stations and sensors in Manitoba's north in hopes of better monitoring the impacts of wildfire smoke in air quality.

"We have a couple tools in the toolbox, but it would obviously be very beneficial as well if we got more of these stations," said Crawford Luke, a meteorologist with the federal agency.

But there are some limitations. Sensors most of the time require Wi-Fi and power to feed back the data needed to calculate air quality — a hurdle in remote communities Environment Canada is hoping to overcome, Luke said.

A spokesperson for the province told CBC News the government is also planning to expand air quality monitoring using low-cost air-quality sensors in "strategic locations," specifically remote communities frequently impacted by wildfire smoke.

But no specifics on the plan have so far been shared, other than saying the province is still in the process of investigating opportunities, including how to configure it best with the existing stations.

In the short-term, Pascoe said more air quality infrastructure would also allow Environment Canada to better predict how smoke is drifting as wind directions change and provide more accurate estimates, including in Winnipeg, of when it is unsafe to be outside especially during the wildfire season.

Henderson said Environment Canada has been trying to fill in the gaps of air quality monitoring on the map, encouraging communities to install their own sensors in recent years.

It is part of transforming an air quality monitoring network that was originally established in Canada to evaluate pollution from traffic and industry.

"Those are still important sources, but we have made great progress in regulating those over time," she said. "But what we do see is a lot more wildfire smoke and we're going to keep seeing that."

While air quality monitors are not necessarily needed to inform the public that it is smoky outside because pollutants are visible in high concentrations, the value of having these tools is for the long-term, Henderson said.

"Wildfire smoke affects your health when it's happening, but it's also going to have a longer lasting effect," she said. 

Those pile up over time and having better data can help scientists understand the effects of wildfire smoke in a particular location.

"As we move into this smokier future, it would be great if people could have had access to something that says how many smoky days have you had in the past 10 years?" she said.