From Roy Spencer, PhD.

June 8th, 2023 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

The thick wildfire smoke that choked major metro areas like Toronto and New York City in the last couple of days originated from over 40 hotspots in Quebec. What is suspicious to me is that most of those hotspots ignited within just a few hours on the morning of Friday, June 2, 2023.

Here’s a GOES-East 3.9 micron image from midday on June 2, which shows the bright near-infrared emissions from those hotspots. You can make your own loops of archived imagery collected every 10 minutes here.

Here’s a loop of the daytime 3.9 micron imagery on June 2 (large file):

There were no “dry thunderstorms” in the area, so it is impossible they occurred naturally through lightning strikes. It seems improbable that all of this fires ignited at nearly the same time by chance. The Toronto Sun is reporting that Quebec police are investigating whether some of the fires might have been deliberately set.