State Republicans Calling on Canadian Government to Shift Forest Management Practices Due to Smokey Skies

Tuesday, August 5th, 2025 -- 2:00 PM

(Joe Schulz, Wisconsin Public Radio) With drifting smoke from Canadian wildfires causing unhealthy air quality in much of Wisconsin, some Republican state and federal legislators are calling for the Canadian government to shift its forest management practices.

But, according to Joe Schulz with Wisconsin Public Radio experts say forest management practices aren’t the sole driver behind the fires, which have intensified in recent years due to climate change.

Wisconsin is expected to continue experiencing poor air quality. The state Department of Natural Resources has extended its air quality advisory for unhealthy air.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, told WPR Friday that both the U.S. and Canada need to change forest management practices to harvest more trees and adopt modern technologies that “can detect fire very early on” and help suppress them.

“I would urge Canada to do that, it’s time,” Tiffany said. “We’re seeing events across Wisconsin being canceled. People are not able to go outside in what’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

Air quality in much of the northern and northwest parts of Wisconsin was unhealthy on Friday, while the air was unhealthy for sensitive groups in the central, northeast and southern parts of the state, according to an air quality map from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A smaller portion of the eastern and south central parts of the state had “moderate” air quality. The air quality in Vilas, Forest and Ashland counties was among the worst in the United States on Friday, according to the EPA.

Craig Czarnecki, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin DNR, said state officials would review the situation on Saturday to determine whether the advisory needs to be extended again. He also said wildfire conditions have changed in Canada in recent years, with a lot of the fires starting in remote and difficult to reach areas.

“They’ve had less precipitation, shorter winters, longer warmer seasons and those have all created these ideal conditions for wildfires to start,” he said. “Once they start, everything is so dry, they’re able to spread quickly.” 

Tiffany and U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, both signed onto a letter to Canadian Ambassador Kirsten Hillman last month saying a key driver behind the Canadian wildfires has been “a lack of active forest management.”

“With all the technology that we have at our disposal, both in preventing and fighting wildfires, this worrisome trend can be reversed if proper action is taken,” the federal lawmakers wrote.

Wab Kinew, premier of the Canadian province of Manitoba, responded last month, saying he wants “these ambulance chasers in the U.S. Congress” to speak to the American firefighters who are helping try to tame the fires.

“This is what turns people off politics,” Kinew said. “When you’ve got a group of congresspeople trying to trivialize and make hay out of a wildfire season where we’ve lost lives in our province.”

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