MINNEAPOLIS — Although the weather has been beautiful lately, last year’s summer of smoke — which blanketed our skyline in a haze — is still on some minds.
“I’d go out for walks like we are today and it was really difficult, and I couldn’t go very far,” Kit Piltingsrud said.
Piltingsrud is on the board of directors for a YMCA and has been wondering about campers’ safety this summer.
“Wildfires and air quality is something that’s on our mind,” Piltingsrud said. “And so how can we keep our kids safe when we’re taking them up into the Boundary Waters and doing those kinds of things is something that we’re having discussions about.”
Last year, 22 air quality alerts were issued for Minnesota — 13 of them were orange, which means bad for people with pre-existing conditions. Nine were red — bad for everyone. Those 22 alerts spanned 52 days.
Since then, state leaders have been preparing for more.
“We put in about $6 million in aviation infrastructure to fight our own wildfires here at home,” Gov. Tim Walz said. “Because of changing climate, the expectations and the forecasts are, we’re going to see more of this.”