Recent Canadian wildfires are record-breaking – and will threaten US air quality for days

After historic seasons in last two years, blazes continue trend of warm, dry conditions intensified by climate crisis

Enormous early-season wildfires have erupted across the prairie provinces of Canada this week, taxing local emergency response and threatening a long stretch of dangerous air quality across eastern North America.

The country's largest fires - the Bird River fire and the Border fire - remain completely uncontained in northern Manitoba. In Manitoba alone, wildfires have burned about 200,000 hectares already this year - already about three times the recent full-year average for the province.