Calm wildfire season in Quebec can't keep the smoke away

The air quality has finally improved after several days of wildfire smoke hanging over much of southern Quebec.

Montreal, along with several other cities in the province, were dealt an air quality advisory starting Saturday and clearing up Monday evening.

But this year, the smoke causing the poor air quality isn't coming from within the province but rather from the fires raging in the Prairies. 

"Fires that were ignited in the month of May are still burning, some of them are still burning," said Yan Boulanger, research scientist in forest ecology at Natural Resources Canada.

"There are several fires that are above 100,000 hectares, some of them are above 500,000 hectares."

He said these fires have an "exceptional" size and are shrouding many other areas of the country in a veil of smoke. 

3 worst wildfire seasons in a row

While Quebec is seeing a rather tame wildfire season, this year is still gearing up to be another intense season for other parts of Canada. So far, 2025 has seen wildfires consume 6.5 million hectares. Last year the number totalled 5.3 million, and in 2023 — Canada's worst wildfire season on record — a little over 16 million hectares burned. 

"The thing that is quite exceptional right now is that we had three years in a row with very, very high fire activity in Canada," said Boulanger. The three most active fire seasons since 1995 have been recorded between 2023 and 2025, he said. 

While the fires in 2023 spread across the country, making the season especially devastating, the fire activity this year is concentrated within the Prairies, British Colombia and western Ontario, he said. 

Once wildfire smoke is up in the air, its particles can remain there for a long time and travel long distances depending on the wind circulation, said Alexandra Cournoyer, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). 

"So even if the fires are more to the west and the Prairies region, depending on the wind, it can blow all the way to other provinces, including Quebec," she said

That was the case for the smoke causing Montreal's latest advisory. The city has spent five days under air quality alerts so far this year. Last year, that number was zero, and in 2023, Montreal was under air quality advisories for 19 days between April and November, according to ECCC. 

While Quebec is seeing significant smoke, it's had very few of its own fires this year. This past July saw the lowest number of fires recorded over the past 10 years, according to the Société de protection des forêts contre le feu, or SOPFEU.

A 'quiet' season for Quebec

As of Tuesday, there are less than five small active wildfires in the province, according to SOPFEU, including in the Mauricie, the Montérégie and the Outaouais. Two others are also being observed in the Côte-Nord. 

The province has seen around 170 fires so far this year, which is more than 200 fewer than the 10-year average, according to SOPFEU. In 2023, over 4.5 million hectares of forest burned in Quebec, compared to 3,000 hectares so far this year. 

"It has been a rather quiet season in the province of Quebec and that is mainly due to the precipitation and the weather that we've had for many portions of the province," said Mélanie Morin, spokesperson for SOPFEU. Regular rain and a lack of drought conditions are making this season much calmer than in the past. 

Prevention also seems to be helping, according to Boulanger. "We still have a lot and too much human-caused fire, but those human-caused fires ... are significantly decreasing since a few decades," he said. 

It's also important to learn from these intense wildfire seasons, said Boulanger. That means adapting our infrastructure, learning how to better manage evacuations and studying the health risks associated with wildfire smoke exposure, he said. 

"[We have] to learn to live in a world where fire will be much more prevalent in the future," he said.