Wildfire smoke means climate change is knocking. Will we answer? | Editorial

While wildfires from 1,000 miles away dropped a haze over Ohio, there’s one thing they’ve made clear: Climate change is knocking on our doors now.

We’ve spent far too long debating whether humans have contributed to a warming climate or not. What matters now is how we adapt and prepare ourselves.

Wildfires and the health risks they bring are not a one-off occurrence, nor will they be going away anytime soon.

Experts such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agree that climate change is exacerbating the problem, with extreme wildfire activity more than doubling worldwide in the past two decades.

Yes, wildfires are a natural phenomenon. They’re sometimes even caused by humans. But consider this: Fire season in the western part of the U.S. is now a month longer than it was 35 years ago thanks to drought, warmer nights and earlier snowmelt. Stressed trees are becoming more susceptible to insect infestations, causing them to burn like kindling.

The wildfire smoke we once heard of out West and up north is now becoming a recurring summertime sight in our hometown – a sign that the Midwest is not immune to the consequences of a warming earth.

The most recent bout brought hazardous air quality to Northeast Ohio for days, prompting widespread warnings to remain indoors. Places from zoos to pools closed, while numerous outdoor events were put on hold or canceled.

There’s no telling if or when those conditions will return this season.

That uncertainty is troubling, but it does not mean we are powerless. The severity and frequency of wildfires can be mitigated through good land stewardship and collaboration.

Unfortunately, the U.S. is not doing well in either area at present.

In 2025, the U.S. Forest Service drastically cut back on the number of acres it treated across the nation, leaving more “hazardous fuels” on forest floors that are prime for catastrophic fires, according to a recent analysis from the Center for Western Priorities.

The Trump administration has also proposed cutting Forest Service funding by roughly 43% for fiscal year 2027, further undermining our ability to prevent and fight fires.

Rather than trying to beef up our own firefighting efforts, our national leaders have instead chosen to point fingers at Canada for smoking out the northeast.

Lawmakers and our president have accused our neighboring country of poor forest management. The truth is that fires have historically been considered good forest management. They clear the most flammable materials in forests, preventing even larger fires in the future, so they’re sometimes intentionally left to burn.

But a larger contributing factor to the ongoing burn is that many of the fires up north are simply too big for Canada to wrap its arms around. Canada has nearly 1 billion acres of forested area – bigger than the entire country of India – and some fires are in remote areas of wilderness that have no roads and can be reached only by air.

Even the U.S. itself highlights the challenges on our Forest Service website: “Wildland fires are a force of nature that can be nearly as impossible to prevent, and as difficult to control, as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods.”

Worth noting, too, is that the U.S. has its own fires burning at any given moment during the summer – fires that, when needed, Canada has historically sent personnel to help extinguish.

In addition to reinstating the Forest Service’s capacity, the U.S. should take a note from Canada about being a good neighbor.

The two countries are part of the National Interagency Fire Center, a collaboration among nations to provide assistance to the countries that need it. Yet so far, despite more than 900 wildfires burning across Canada, there have only been a reported few dozen firefighters sent from the U.S. to help.

If we can afford to send more, we should – or, at the very least, our leaders should stop their verbal attacks.

We must recognize this is a global problem. Thinking individualistically may seem more beneficial, but as we can see by the smoke billowing over our communities from hundreds of miles away, it only hurts us all.

There are things we as individuals can do, too. Preventing fires starts with us. Extinguishing campfires, following equipment regulations and respecting posted rules in parks and at campgrounds make all the difference – especially when we travel to more drought-prone areas.

Problems of such mammoth proportions are intimidating, no doubt. But we cannot concede to apathy or reduced effort.

The traveling smoke is a reminder that nature knows no borders; it is all connected. We must approach wildfire mitigation, climate change and the pursuit of clean air with that same understanding.

This piece was written by Akron Beacon Journal Opinion and Community Engagement Editor Theresa Bennett on behalf of the editorial board of the Beacon Journal. Editorials are fact-based assessments of issues of importance to the communities we serve. These are not the opinions of our reporting staff members, who strive for neutrality in their reporting.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Wildfire smoke means climate change is knocking. Will we answer? | Editorial