Minnesota Wildfire Smoke Detected in Our Area

If you went outside Tuesday afternoon and detected the scent of a campfire, it wasn't your imagination.

Several area communities have issued alerts notifying residents that the smoke they're smelling and the haze they're seeing isn't from a local emergency — it's from a wildfire burning hundreds of miles away in Minnesota.

The Pagami Creek Wildfire is more than 400 miles northwest of the Chicago area in northeast Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, yet the smoke has blown in to Plainfield, Naperville and the surrounding areas.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an alert for the Chicago area, released via Illinois EnviroFlash at 9 a.m. today, that warned that particle pollution (2.5 microns) had reached 123 AQI, which makes the air unhealthy for sensitive groups.

The fire was started on Aug. 18, the result of a lightning strike, according to InciWeb.org, a site that offers information on the fire. The fire is about 14 miles east of the town of Ely, Minn.

The  sent an alert to residents Tuesday afternoon. Anyone with respiratory or cardiac problems, the elderly and anyone doing strenuous activity outdoors is asked to be cautious while outside.

A cold front moving into the area earlier today blew the smoke from the 60,000-acre wildfire into Northern Illinois, the city said.

“The front has transported smoke all the way into Northern Illinois. The smoke will likely persist through the afternoon and into the overnight hours before winds become more westerly in advance of another cold front which will approach early Wednesday morning,” according to the National Weather Service.

"Smoke will likely continue to spread to the southeast across much of northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana through this evening."

Residents should expect the sky to appear hazy and the air to smell like a burning odor.

In Minnesota, crews are working the fire, with airplanes and helicopters dropping water to slow its spread. Hand crews are on the ground monitoring the fire for any spreading, according to InciWeb. The fire grew on Monday, making a 16-mile run to the east and is in excess of 60,000 acres, InciWeb said.