Wildfire Smoke Engulfs the Midwest: This Should Remind us to Stay in the Fight!

by Ron Prosek, FaCT Ohio Board

MENTOR, OH in Lake County. This is the second time in the last three

years that I remember wildfire smoke engulfing my town, my county, my

state and the entire Midwest. Yesterday I woke up to a hazy sky with a

haze that came right down to the ground. I went outside, and I could smell

the smoke and see the general foggy haze that it created around our

neighborhood.

Great Lakes inundated by Canadian Wildfire Smoke July 16-17

Recently I read When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World by

Jordan Thomas (2025), and I saw and heard Thomas speak at FaCT’s

Distinguished Speaker event in February. Before that, I had read Fire

Weather—A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant (2023). Both

books thoroughly describe the incredible intensity of massive wildfires.

Vaillant describes scenes of melted cars and trucks in the Fort McMurray

Fire. He also describes how the heat at the front of some of these fires is

equivalent to the energy produced by several nuclear bombs going off at

once. As the wildfire approached it, Fort McMurray, Alberta was confident

that the intervening Athabasca River would stop it. But the fire would not

be stopped. Embers jumped over the river and set the town on fire—an

unimaginably horrible fire that raged for months and literally incinerated

large parts of the town. (Fires in the northern boreal forests typically are

crown fires that jump across the tops of trees. Fire breaks on the ground

will not stop them.)

Ft. McMurray Fire, 2016. 80,000 people had to be evacuated.

Jordan Thomas, a brave California fire fighter, described the unpredictability of these massive fires – raging in one direction and then suddenly turning the fire front in the opposite direction – right toward the fire fighters who had to flee for their lives and let the fire have its own way.

I remember the first smokey experience I had in my own neighborhood a

few years ago. At the time many asked, “Why don’t the Canadians just

send fire trucks to these fires and put them out before they can spread?”

The fires in northern Quebec and Ontario are in such remote places there

are no fire trucks in the area. There aren’t even any towns in the area.

Before they are even discovered, the fires up there become massive raging

and rapidly spreading infernos. Ninety percent of them are caused by

lightning, so Smokey the Bear is a little off when he says, “Only you can

prevent wildfires.”

The brave men and women in Canada and in the U.S. who put their lives

on the line to fight wildfires focus on fires that directly threaten human life in

cities, towns, and rural hamlets. And that alone is a Herculean task, and

sometimes a fight they cannot win.

Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and others are blaming the

Canadians for not stopping their fires. To top it all off, today I heard that

President Trump is going to punish Canada for not controlling their fires.

By the way, many of the current fires started in Minnesota and jumped the

border, spreading into Canadian territory.

Wake up, you ignoramuses! Those aren’t Canadian fires. Those are fires

that belong to the entire human family. This isn’t a Canadian problem or an

American problem. This is a world problem, and the root cause is

anthropogenic climate warming, i.e., climate change that we have brought

about by burning fossil fuels. The CO2, methane, and other climate

warming gases have built up over the centuries, and now ever more

serious consequences are setting in.

Finger pointing is certainly not going to address the problem effectively.

We need nations to work together – to cooperate in reducing greenhouse

gas emissions. And that is happening, but more must be done. The

withdrawal of the U.S. from the C.O.P. process doesn’t help. The Trump

Administration’s gutting of environmental laws in the U.S. is obviously

counterproductive—actually subversive.

As Katharine Heyhoe reports on her website, the U.S. has reduced

greenhouse gas emissions over the period of the last several years.

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration’s policies will likely reverse this

trend if continued. But we can’t just wait until Trump is gone. We must get

into the fight now and keep fighting. We need to educate more people. For

FaCT Ohio, this is the mission we carry out first and foremost in our faith

communities because we believe that people of faith have the moral

courage and spiritual grounding that well equips them for this mission.

Let’s keep educating and building up the critical mass in our faith

communities to bring our efforts to the next level—organizing action –

political action and other action that will compel politicians to listen more to

the people rather than to their special interest, big money backers,

especially their backers in the fossil fuel industry.

FaCT Ohio joined this demonstration in Youngstown

Yes, I know the Ohio General Assembly seems hopelessly beyond reach.

They can hear testimony that is ninety percent against bad legislation, but

they pass it anyway. Why? Because their campaign money and sometimes

other money besides comes from their pals in the fossil industry. Yeah. It’s

a thoroughly corrupt system. I get it. But I’m not going to give in to it. And

don’t you give into it either.

Remember the walls of Jericho. The trumpets of the righteous sounded,

and the walls came tumbling down. Your voice is your trumpet. Your

righteous indignation is your superpower. Proclaim the truth. Proclaim it

over and over until they HAVE to listen. And not just your trumpet or my

trumpet, but all of us together in a righteous community sounding our

trumpets together, and the walls will come tumbling down! This is our

belief. This is our faith! Solidarity forever!