Drifting smoke from megafires hurts economies far beyond their flames

Even if you don't live near any of the recent megafires burning in the U.S. West and around the globe, chances are you've experienced some of the environmental fallout as a result of the wildfires — even from hundreds of miles away. 

Smoke from fires in Western U.S. and Canada muted skies as far east as Boston and the Maritime provinces this summer. In Europe, smoke from fires in Turkey and Greece can be seen ⁠— and smelled ⁠— far from the location of those infernos. For the first time in recorded history, smoke drifted from fires in Siberia to the North Pole.  Though air quality had been improving over the past several decades, a 2021 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that wildfire smoke is reversing that trend by adding microscopic particles to the air across the U.S., with even higher concentrations on the West Coast.