Wildfire Smoke, Haze Return To MA: What To Know

MASSACHUSETTS — Smoke and haze from Canada’s long-burning wildfires are prompting a new round of air quality concerns in Massachusetts and across the Northeast.

The air quality index in eastern Massachusetts is forecast to be between 90 and 100 pm2.5 on Monday, which is within the “moderate” risk level, according to airnow.gov. Those levels are expected to stay about the same into Tuesday, and will generally be slightly higher in western and central Massachusetts.

"Will see another day of milky haze across southern New England today with wildfire smoke moving through," the National Weather Service office in Norton said in a tweet Monday morning.

Early Monday, the worst air quality in the country was just off the East Coast, according to a visualization of the airnow.gov data by The New York Times. Most coastal areas from Florida to the Northeast had moderate air quality.

The Canada wildfire season started early this year, and above-average wildfire activity is expected to continue through October in some places. The United States has seen very little wildfire activity this year, although the potential for wildfires through October is above-average in parts of the Pacific Northwest, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and some Mid-Atlantic states.

Massachusetts saw multiple air quality alerts in May, June and July as the wildfire season in Canada got off to a strong start.