The Canadian wildfire haze that blanketed much of the Hudson Valley this week is an eerie portent of a future where local fire departments must do much more than extinguish blazes: They’ll need to prevent them in the future.

“The plan is we get dispatched and we put it out,” said Greg Meola, a firefighter in Olive. “We do not do any back burns or prescribed burns.”

New York state officials issued a series of air quality health advisories for regions across New York this week to warn residents of elevated levels of fine particulate matter and ozone pollution. Those advisories were in effect through Aug. 6 and spanned western New York and the Adirondacks to the Hudson Valley and New York City, impacting tens of millions of residents.

In Woodstock, Saugerties, Hunter, Olive, Shandaken, and Hurley, the air quality index topped 100, a level considered unhealthy for sensitive groups that the immunocompromised, those with heart or lung disease, older adults, children, and pregnant women.

Although steady rain in July kept wildfire risk low this summer, officials say conditions can change quickly. Last year, a dry autumn fueled some of New York’s largest wildfires in decades, including the 5,300-acre Jennings Creek Fire along the New York–New Jersey border. The Whitehouse Fire last fall that began in the Peekamoose Valley was fully contained only after burning about 630 acres. If drought returns, dry vegetation, wind and warmer temperatures could once again create dangerous fire conditions.

“The climate changed, so we need to change,” said James McDonald, commissioner of the New York State Department of Health in a virtual press conference. “Part of that change is looking at air quality every day.”

Local residents such as Ed Sanders, a poet and founding member of the 1960s band the Fugs, a band cited as influencing Dylan, Sonic Youth, and Lou Reed,  says the haze is hard on his health.

“My eyes have been watering like I was watching a tear-jerker movie now for weeks,” said Sanders, who lives in Woodstock and serves on the town’s Tree Committee. “What does the future foretell? Maybe we’ll have to have big dirigible sized bags of clean air hovering outside each of our houses so that we can safely breathe.”

Sanders drafted a 15-page “Woodstock Fire Prevention and Fire Survival Plan”in November, during a period of drought and a state-issued fire danger alert for the Catskills. His proposal calls for a coordinated response involving the town government, emergency services, cultural institutions, and residents, emphasizing both prevention and preparedness in the face of climate-driven fire risk. Woodstock’s extensive forest cover is estimated at up to 79% of its land and makes the community particularly vulnerable to wildfires in prolonged dry periods, Sanders wrote.

Climate change and periodic droughts are increasing wildfire risk in New York, said Amanda Lefton, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation.

The DEC manages the risk by working with local firefighters, state agencies and other partners through a “really robust network” to ensure the expertise and resources needed to respond, she said. A key strategy: Conducting prescribed burns that can mitigate future burns by reducing underbrush.

On Monday, the state expanded its advisory to include ozone pollution in New York City and Long Island and promulgated warnings about PM2.5, fine particulate matter, across most of the state.

“It’s been a particularly smoky summer this year in the northern United States,” said Ben Noll, a meteorologist at the Washington Post who also runs a Hudson Valley forecast site. “What’s making it worse this week is that there’s an area of high pressure overhead, which allows the smoke particles to sink toward the ground, so much so that people sensitive to the smoke are reporting health effects, like burning, itchy eyes.”

While some local residents say they’ve had an increase in migraine attacks since the haze began, pharmacist Neal Smoller at Village Apothecary in Woodstock said customers haven’t been buying more masks amid reports of labored breathing and allergy symptoms.

Meteorologists and health experts say the air quality alerts may become increasingly common.

“Frequent rainfall this summer has kept local wildfire risk at bay,” said Noll, the Washington Post meteorologist. “But in a general sense, as the climate warms, it can increase the speed at which grounds dry out during periods of low rainfall, which will have the long-term effect of increasing fire weather risks, probably including the Hudson Valley.”

Officials urge residents to reduce pollution and protect themselves by limiting outdoor activities during advisories, using public transit, and monitoring real-time air quality data at airnow.gov.

“Be air quality aware,” said the DEC’s Lefton. “That’s our biggest ask.”

Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.