Iowa air quality will diminish as smoke from Canadian wildfires moves south

Air quality in Iowa is expected to worsen in the coming days as smoke from Canadian wildfires makes its way south.

The Iowa DNR on Tuesday issued a statewide Air Quality Alert through 6 a.m. Thursday. The agency warned that the Air Quality Index may reach the red or unhealthy category in affected areas.

The Air Quality Index— AQI — measures how clean or polluted the air is based on ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide.

The index ranges from green, where the air quality is satisfactory and air pollution poses little or no risk, to maroon, which is considered hazardous.

The EPA’s airnow.gov website on Tuesday afternoon showed only the most northern Iowa counties along the Minnesota border had reached the unhealthy category.

The DNR advised that the band would move south across the state Tuesday night. Elevated levels of fine particulates may be a concern over the next couple of days as the smoke continues to move through the state.

A swath of the state -- a band from the Iowa’s southwest corner to the northeast -- could fall into the unhealthy category through Thursday morning, according to the DNR. Intermittent thick smoke can be expected.

Sensitive groups of people as well as the general public may experience health effects in the red level, the DNR warned.

Parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan were rated “very unhealthy” on Tuesday. Hennepin Healthcare, the main emergency hospital in Minneapolis, has seen a slight increase in visits by patients with respiratory symptoms aggravated by the dirty air, the AP reported Tuesday.

The DNR recommends that people reduce long or intense activities, and take more breaks during outdoor activities until air quality conditions improve. This recommendation is especially pertinent to individuals with heart or lung disease, older adults, children and teenagers and outdoor workers. People in these categories should consider rescheduling or moving outdoor activities indoors.

Real-time air quality maps and information about the air quality index can be found on EPA’s airnow.gov site. Detailed information about wildfire impacts on current air quality can be found at: airnow.gov/wildfires.

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Canada is having another bad wildfire season, and more than 27,000 people in three provinces have been forced to evacuate, the AP reports. Most of the smoke reaching the American Midwest has been coming from fires northwest of the provincial capital of Winnipeg in Manitoba.

Canada’s worst-ever wildfire season was in 2023. It blanketed much of North America -- including Iowa -- in dangerous smoke for months.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.