Air quality deteriorated across much of Montana on Wednesday as smoke from wildfires in Alberta, Canada infiltrated the region overnight.
The Department of Environmental Quality issued an air quality alert for 43 Montana counties, including the Flathead Valley. The smoke is expected to blanket the region through at least Friday, warned Jeff Kitsmiller, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Missoula.
Kitsmiller said a shift in the winds pushed the smoke into the U.S. on Wednesday.
“There are a lot of fires up in Canada and that smoke had been building up,” he said. “Then our flow shifted to the north and grabbed all that smoke and sent it right into the Flathead Valley and more.”
The smoke affected a swath from the Washington coast to North Dakota.
“It’s a big wall of smoke coming straight down,” Kitsmiller said.