Weather experts are blaming wildfires in Canada and Montana for the hazy skies over much of Iowa. National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Cousins said the fires in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan likely were supplying the majority of the smoky haze. He says the haze had cut visibility at the Davenport Municipal Airport to 2½ miles (4 kilometers).The fires Sunday caused evacuations in Glacier National Park in Montana and many other parts of the West; compelled crews to rescue about 140 hikers who had spent the night in the woods after fire broke out along the popular Columbia River Gorge Trail in Oregon; and led firefighters to step up efforts to protect a 2,700-year-old grove of giant sequoia encroached by flames near Yosemite National Park in California. A sudden gusty series of rainstorms allowed Los Angeles, however, to cancel evacuation orders for a wildfire that the mayor called the largest in the city's history and sent beach umbrellas and toy shovels bouncing down Southern California beaches late Sunday.(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Weather experts are blaming wildfires in Canada and Montana for the hazy skies over much of Iowa.



National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Cousins said the fires in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan likely were supplying the majority of the smoky haze.



He says the haze had cut visibility at the Davenport Municipal Airport to 2½ miles (4 kilometers).

The fires Sunday caused evacuations in Glacier National Park in Montana and many other parts of the West; compelled crews to rescue about 140 hikers who had spent the night in the woods after fire broke out along the popular Columbia River Gorge Trail in Oregon; and led firefighters to step up efforts to protect a 2,700-year-old grove of giant sequoia encroached by flames near Yosemite National Park in California.



A sudden gusty series of rainstorms allowed Los Angeles, however, to cancel evacuation orders for a wildfire that the mayor called the largest in the city's history and sent beach umbrellas and toy shovels bouncing down Southern California beaches late Sunday.


(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)