BISMARCK, N.D.: Much of the Upper Midwest on Saturday was dealing with swaths of unhealthy air because of drifting smoke from Canadian wildfires, covering the northern region of the US at a time when people want to be enjoying lakes, trails and the great outdoors.
Most of Minnesota and parts of Montana, North Dakota and Wisconsin were ranked “unhealthy” for air quality on a US Environmental Protection Agency map. Part of North Dakota that is home to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and other tourist attractions was ranked “very unhealthy,” some of the worst air quality in the nation.
In Minnesota, “If you have a nice pork loin you can hang from a tree, it’ll turn into ham,” quipped Al Chirpich, owner of the Hideaway Resort near Detroit Lakes, where people come to enjoy tree-lined Island Lake for fishing and other water activities.
Normally there would be boats and jet skis all over, but on Saturday he couldn’t see a boat on the lake, where the smoke impaired visibility and curtailed his camper business. None of his 18 RV sites was occupied. His seven rental cabins drew a handful of customers.
“I suspect when the weather clears, we’ll be swamped again. Fourth of July, I had probably 20 boats here lined up at my docks, and today my boat is the only one,” Chirpich said.
The conditions started Friday, dragging smoke from the Canadian wildfires down to the surface, said National Weather Service Meteorologist Jennifer Ritterling, in Grand Forks. Periods of bad air quality are expected to last through the weekend in the region, she said.
Limiting time outdoors, keeping windows closed and running air purifiers are good ideas for people with lung conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and even healthy people, Ritterling said.
“Our summers up here are fairly short and so everyone wants to get out and enjoy them, and it’s a little frustrating when there’s this smoke in the air,” she said.
Fires in Canada prompt state of emergency for some
All of Manitoba is under a state of emergency because of the wildfires, which have led to 12,600 people evacuating their homes in the province. The fires in the central Canadian province have burned over 3,861 square miles , the most land burned in 30 years of electronic record-keeping.
Under 1,000 people have evacuated their homes in Saskatchewan, where wildfires also continue to burn.
North Rim in Grand Canyon still closed
In Arizona, the North Rim in Grand Canyon National Park is still closed because of a 2.3 square-mile wildfire and another fire nearby on Bureau of Land Management land that has burned nearly 17 square miles .
More than 200 firefighters and support personnel worked to halt the uncontained fire Saturday as it burned across a high-altitude plateau between the communities of Lonesome, White Sage and Jacob Lake.
In Colorado, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park remains closed because of a 4.4-square-mile wildfire burning on the South Rim of the park, known for its dramatic, steep cliffs. A few miles from the fire, an evacuation was ordered for the community of Bostwick Park, and a nearby highway also was shut.
The fires in and near both national parks led to evacuations of hundreds of people.
Chirpich, the Minnesota resort owner, said he has plans to go to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park on Thursday and is “a bit pensive about how that’s going to be there.”
“I’m going to leave one smokehouse for another, I guess,” he said.
Unhealthy smoke from Canadian wildfires blankets the Upper Midwest when people want to be outside
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Unhealthy smoke from Canadian wildfires blankets the Upper Midwest when people want to be outside
Italian suspect questioned over Bosnia ‘weekend sniper’ killings
- The octogenarian former truck driver from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy, is suspected by Milan prosecutors of “voluntary homicide aggravated by abject motives,” according to Italian news agency ANSA
ROME: An 80-year-old man suspected of being a “weekend sniper” who paid the Bosnian Serb army to shoot civilians during the 1990s siege of Sarajevo was questioned Monday in Milan, media reported.
The octogenarian former truck driver from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy, is suspected by Milan prosecutors of “voluntary homicide aggravated by abject motives,” according to Italian news agency ANSA.
Lawyer Giovanni Menegon told journalists that his client had answered questions from prosecutors and police and “reaffirmed his complete innocence.”
In October, prosecutors opened an investigation into what Italian media dubbed “weekend snipers” or “war tourists“: mostly wealthy, gun-loving, far-right sympathizers who allegedly gathered in Trieste and were taken to the hills surrounding Sarajevo where they fired on civilians for sport.
During the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo that began in April 1992 some 11,541 men, women and children were killed and more than 50,000 people wounded by Bosnian Serb forces, according to official figures.
Il Giornale newspaper reported last year that the would-be snipers paid Bosnian Serb forces up to the equivalent of €100,000 ($115,000) per day to shoot at civilians below them.
The suspect — described by the Italian press as a hunting enthusiast who is nostalgic for Fascism — is said to have boasted publicly about having gone “man hunting.”
Witness statements, particularly from residents of his village, helped investigators to track the suspect, freelance journalist Marianna Maiorino said.
“According to the testimonies, he would tell his friends at the village bar about what he did during the war in the Balkans,” said Maiorino, who researched the allegations and was herself questioned as part of the investigation.
The suspect is “described as a sniper, someone who enjoyed going to Sarajevo to kill people,” she added.
The suspect told local newspaper Messaggero Veneto Sunday he had been to Bosnia during the war, but “for work, not for hunting.” He added that his public statements had been exaggerated and he was “not worried.”
The investigation opened last year followed a complaint filed by Italian journalist and writer Ezio Gavanezzi, based on allegations revealed in the documentary “Sarajevo Safari” by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic in 2022.
Gavanezzi was contacted in August 2025 by the former mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic, who filed a complaint in Bosnia in 2022 after the same documentary was broadcast.
The Bosnia and Herzegovina prosecutor’s office confirmed on Friday that a special war crimes department was investigating alleged foreign snipers during the siege of Sarajevo.
Bosnian prosecutors requested information from Italian counterparts at the end of last year, while also contacting the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, it said. That body performs some of the functions previously carried out by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Sarajevo City Council adopted a decision last month authorizing the current mayor, Samir Avdic, to “join the criminal proceedings” before the Italian courts, in order to support Italian prosecutors.
