"A lot of the prairies within Canada, the prairie provinces, entered the fire season already starting out in a drought, and so there wasn't a lot of moisture throughout the winter," said Alex Jones a communications manager at the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center.

An air quality alert will be in effect across all of Minnesota until at least 11 p.m. July 25, according to the state Pollution Control Agency.

Summer smoke from Canadian wildfires is once again hazing out Minnesota skies — just in time for your long-awaited Northwoods vacation. Not the pristine, fresh pine-forest air you were hoping for. “It’s not really better or worse up here than the Twin Cities right now,