Visitors to national parks and other public lands in the Midwest on Thursday faced closures and unhealthy air quality as smoke, primarily from wildfires in Canada, continued to waft across a region stretching from Minnesota to the East Coast.
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a popular recreation area in northeastern Minnesota, has been closed since Tuesday, according to the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the site. Nearly two dozen fires started in the forest there on Tuesday after a lightning storm.
“Wildfires don’t just threaten trees and campsites,” the Forest Service said in a statement posted to its website. “They create dangerous smoke, unstable conditions, and rapidly shifting fire behavior that can trap visitors with little warning.”
Several national parks in the Midwest warned on social media on Thursday that they were experiencing unhealthy or dangerous air quality and urged visitors to limit outdoor activity. Affected national parks in the region include Indiana Dunes, in Indiana; Cuyahoga Valley, in Ohio; Isle Royale, in Michigan; and Voyageurs, in Minnesota.
“Ash is falling from the sky,” Isle Royale National Park said on its website. It added that a small fire was confirmed within the park on Tuesday, though the status of that fire, or whether it was contributing to the poor air quality in the park, was not immediately clear on Thursday.
Air Quality Index readings from sensors near Isle Royale ranged from nearly 750 to more than 1000 on Thursday afternoon, according to AirNow, a real-time monitoring tool run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. An AQI higher than 300 is considered hazardous; the scale itself typically maxes out at 500.
Quetico Provincial Park, in Ontario, closed accommodations and recreation areas through at least July 25 and said on its website that reservation holders would receive a full refund or be able to change their reservations for free.
Many parks in the region remained open on Thursday, but several adjusted their programming in an effort to keep visitors out of the smoke. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, in northern Michigan, moved all ranger programs indoors.
Voyageurs National Park banned campfires, including within designated fire rings, beginning on July 12 because of “high fire danger and active wildfires across northeast Minnesota.”
Niagara Falls State Park, in New York, along the border with Ontario, posted an alert on its website that the park remained open but that visitors should “use caution and stay aware of current conditions, including smoke and air quality impacts.”
Across the river, the tourism organization for the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario, said on Wednesday that it would pause its nightly fireworks shows until air quality improves.
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