Each year, Environment and Climate Change Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips releases his top ten weather stories of the year. In 2021, four took place across the Prairies and had effects on our area.

We continue with our third story: "Summer goes up in smoke"

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Coast to coast, it's hard to find a part of Canada that was not affected by a wildfire to some extent in 2021.

In British Columbia, more than 1500 wildfires were reported, with an area one-and-a-half times larger than Prince Edward Island being burnt. By July 10th, only Atlantic Canada and Alberta were not dealing with out-of-control wildfires. However, the smoke from wildfires in neighbouring provinces and territories contributed to a lot of air pollution.

Environment and Climate Change Canada's David Phillips says here in Manitoba, smoke was a big problem.

"We thought from, I think, Berens River, an area of big forest fires, that smoke just didn't travel east," says Phillips. "It kind of came back, it almost doubled back and got you from the amount of smoke. I know that Winnipeg had 240 hours of smoke and haze. That's a record."

The 240 hours of smoke and haze is about 16 times more than what we would normally see in this area. More than 1,300 people from Manitoba First Nations communities had to be evacuated.

"It was a health issue in terms of the smoke, the fires in Manitoba. We had fires in Saskatchewan that affected Manitoba. We had them in May and they were occurring in October," says Phillips. "I mean, it was just a relentless year in terms of fires. They were early. They were active."

East of us, you did not have to go far to see another wildfire. Hot and dry weather in spring and summer contributed to prime fire conditions in Northwestern Ontario, creating 50 per cent more wildfires than normal. One near Kenora burned out of control for nearly five months.

You can read more on this story and the other top stories of the year here.