Michigan’s air quality declined dangerously earlier this month due to wildfire smoke from Minnesota and Canada. 

Pollutants in the smoke can have long-term health consequences for humans, pets, and wildlife. However, for trees themselves the health effects are less consequential.  

Wayne State University forestry professor Dan Kashian says that while our tree canopy is important for converting carbon dioxide into life-supporting oxygen, days or even weeks of heavy smoke plumes is unlikely to harm Michigan’s trees. He says the main effect would be on the amount of sunlight on smokey days. 

Kashian says,  “Trees need to photosynthesize…anything that affects the amount of light that they’re receiving is going to affect how well they can grow.”

According to Kashian, harmful pollutants from wildfire smoke can settle on leaves but are often washed away by rain without lasting harm to the tree’s health.  

“But when you’re talking about a couple of days of heavy smoke like this, especially when it’s hot, it can actually help them because they don’t really like really high temperatures either,” Kashian says.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Wildfire smoke at times last week made Detroit’s air quality the worst in the world — that’s in a place that consistently gets terrible grades for heavy pollution.

So, how is our health impacted by poor air quality?

Dr. Garen Wolff is an allergy and immunology physician at the Detroit Medical Center. She says people with asthma are having to use inhalers too often.  

“It should be (used) less than twice a week, but when we have poor air quality for long periods of time, I have patients using their rescue inhaler every day and that’s not healthy for the lungs to do,” says Wolff.

Dr. Wolff spoke with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent about the health consequences of breathing smoke-filled air.  

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand. Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have thoughts? Email the show at metro@wdet.org.

More from The Metro

Over the past four months, northern Michigan has experienced a series of extreme weather events.

In March, an ice storm caused tens of thousands of utility customers to lose power. In April, record-breaking precipitation caused rivers and lakes to flood, ripping apart roads. Now, smoke from Canadian and Minnesota wildfires has been creating air quality alerts. 

Before the smoke blew to metro Detroit, it hit northern Michigan first, choking that part of the state with a blanket of smoke. 

Climate change is affecting everyone, but effects can very depending on the location. What are things like for residents of northern Michigan? And, how are they preparing for future extreme weather events?

Vivian La is a climate solutions reporter for Interlochen Public Radio and Grist. She spoke about the northern Michiganders trying to adapt to climate change — and those who are trying to maintain the status quo — with The Metro’s Sam Corey.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand.

Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts.

More stories from The Metro

Oakland County Parks and Bloomfield Hills Schools are working together to turn natural areas into public parks.

Officials say that this partnership is designed to protect the sites for the long term, give more residents easier access and keep school programs going.

Oakland County Parks Director Chris Ward and Bloomfield Hills Schools Superintendent Rick West say the plan will make the land more open to the community while preserving a special natural area in a suburban neighborhood.

Since Bloomfield Hills doesn’t have any public parks, this change is a big deal for local residents. Sites like the Johnson Nature Center may eventually connect to walking paths, including a safe route through the city. 

Students already use these sites for their lessons. A fifth-grade class took a field trip to the Johnson Nature Center recently to learn about the local watershed.

West says the center is a valuable natural area in the midst of the highly developed community. “It’s… nature at its best, right here, nestled in Bloomfield Township, and our students get to benefit from it. Our community gets to benefit from it, and that’s the richness of the partnership [with Oakland County Parks],” he says.

This agreement is a teamwork effort between the school district and the parks department, aimed at benefiting both recreation and education for students, local residents, and the entire county.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy announced a statewide Air Quality Alert for Wednesday, July 15. 

Smoke from Canadian wildfires is expected to spread across the state. This will likely cause higher levels of air pollution which can be harmful to health.

EGLE stated that thick smoke from wildfires north of Minnesota will start reaching the Upper Peninsula overnight and then spread south across the Lower Peninsula during the day and into the evening Wednesday.

Dr. Youcheng Liu, who is with Wayne State University, said people should check the Air Quality Index (AQI) before going outside.

“Even moderate levels are a concern. But if the AQI goes above 100, it’s considered heavy pollution, which everyone should pay attention to.”

Health officials recommend that residents, especially children, older adults, pregnant women, and people with asthma, COPD, heart disease, or other breathing problems, should avoid strenuous outdoor activities while the alert is in effect.

Liu explained that the main worry is the presence of PM2.5, tiny particles from wildfire smoke that can penetrate deep into the lungs and increase the chances of lung and heart problems.

To stay safe, Liu suggests limiting outdoor time, avoiding intense exercise outside, keeping windows and doors closed, using indoor air circulation instead of bringing in outdoor air, and running air purifiers if you have them. 

He says those who need to spend time outside should consider wearing a mask rated N95 or higher for better protection.

Michigan residents can check local air conditions on the EGLE MiAir Quality Index Dashboard, AirNow, weather apps that show AQI numbers, or by signing up for Michigan’s EnviroFlash alert system.

Hundreds of thousands of Michiganders lost power over the weekend of July Fourth, prompting a conversation about the fragility of the electrical grid in the face of climate change.

Regulators have approved rate hikes to facilitate infrastructure updates, but modernization of the scale needed will take years. Despite the fact that consumers won’t reap the benefits immediately, residents are having to pay for the upgrades now.

Democratic lawmakers have proposed solutions: Fair compensation for power outages, guaranteeing improvement of utility services, ensuring customers aren’t contributing to CEO bonuses and more. But these bills are gaining little to no traction, often deprived of a hearing.

Why can’t politics fix this issue? What does it say about those we’ve elected in the state legislature?

Colin Jackson is a reporter for the Michigan Public Radio Network. He says Republicans are concerned with rolling back clean energy standards, while Democrats prioritize regulation.

“I think when you talk about lowering energy costs and lowering power costs and utility costs, that is something that you do see both sides of the aisle talking about quite a bit,” says Jackson. “It’s just the approach to it in general varies drastically.”

Jackson joined The Metro’s Robyn Vincent to discuss why gridlock in Lansing has meant a less stable electrical grid.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and stream on-demand.

Never miss an episode — subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, NPR, or wherever you get your podcasts.

More stories from The Metro

Dearborn was named a Tree City USA for the 39th year.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud says its a pride point for the city. “We’re trying to take it an extra step, ensuring that we offer all of our residents a free tree in their easements, and even if they’d like a free treatment for their personal property,” he says.

Benefits

Hammoud says the trees help with flood mitigation in the city.

“The more trees you put in the ground, the more water it can absorb, helping prevent that water from entering your water and sewer system, which helps increase your capacity,” he says.

City reprenstatives have been planting about 1,000 trees a year, he says.

What goes up…

Hammoud says road construction and storms can sometimes lead to some trees coming down.

“Sometimes a tree will be removed if you have major road construction, and you do chop off some of the root system, and then you’d no longer have a tree that can be there safely, where a windstorm, especially if there’s many leaves in the tree, can get picked up along with that windstorm,” he shares.

He says there are efforts to educate residents about the benefit of planting and saving trees. The city has also caught up on a backlog of taking down dead and deceased trees from 1,200-1,300 to about 100 trees. 

Setting trees up for success

The city mostly plants trees that are 3-4 years old, and works with the Crimboli Nursery & Landscapes to get their trees.

Every tree comes with a 1-2 year warranty, but residents are asked to water the trees.

“If the wooden stakes are still on the tree that are helping keeping it up, that means the tree has a warranty for those first two years, ensuring that can kind of grow out of its newborn phase,” he says.

Dearborn residents can request a free tree in their easement by visiting dearborn.gov/trees. 

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

The city of Midland is the first in the state to use AI to inventory their tree canopy.

Midland partnered with the Davey Tree company and used special software to assess more than 30,000 urban trees.

Midland’s Director of Parks and Recreation Marcie Post says the TreeKeeper system uses a type of 3D scanning technology that is integrated with AI. 

“And what we do with this system is it helps us track where our trees are, species, health, basically everything we need to know about our trees. So that if something were to happen let’s say if we were to get a pest we have an  idea of where that pest is, what trees it may affect, and so on and so forth.”

She says the city is dedicated to the health of its trees.

“We know what value trees bring both in aesthetic appeal but also financially we know the value of a tree so we’re just really excited to be able to show our residents how important we think it is and really to continue education on trees and the importance of trees in our environment.”

Post says the software detects information about the species, circumference and health of each tree, giving the city a baseline for management. Midland’s trees have suffered from pests like the Emerald Ash Borer and this software can find gaps in the tree canopy that need to be filled. 

The city’s trees were scanned last summer and data analysis will begin this summer.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Researchers say the composition of Michigan’s forests may change in the future.

For the past 28 years, scientists from Michigan State University have taken a census of seedlings from 10 species in the Manistee National Forest.

Bailey McNichols is a postdoctoral scholar at MSU. She says their annual seedling census tracks responses to change.

“Forests are likely to exist in this location and they are likely to be resilient to the changing climate but we might just see a transition in the composition of these forests.”

McNichols says researchers predict Michigan’s growing season will become warmer and wetter, changing which species of trees will thrive in the state.

“And if those are the conditions which are predicted to exist in the future then it’s likely that we’re going to see more of five different of the ten species which were more Red Maples, more Ironwood, more Black Cherry, and more Red Oak and White Oak.”

McNichols says in contrast, Sugar Maple, Basswood and White Ash are among the species expected to decline.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Thirteen years ago, a local businessman and an agriculture expert joined forces to change a chunk of Detroit’s east side.  They started an experiment, planting thousands of trees in empty lots, in an effort to force out blight.  That experiment is called Hantz Woodlands.

You’ll see some of the results if you drive up McClellan or Belvidere, just north of Kercheval.  Mike Score is the President of Hantz Farms, the company that owns and manages the woodlands.  He spoke with WDET’s Jerome Vaughn. 

Score says the company has surpassed the goals it originally set in a deal with the city.

“We said we tear down at least 50 dangerous structures and we torn down 70.  We said we’d plant at least 15,000 trees and we’ve planted over 40,000.  And we said we’d mow every three weeks, and we’re mowing on a two-week cycle right now.”

Score says three trees have helped transform neighborhoods.  There was initial skepticism, and even organized opposition in the early days of the project.  But Score says those obstacles have faded away once residents in the area saw the effects of the project.

“Our neighbors in the beginning thought that our trees were a mystery.  They said, ‘we don’t want trees, we want neighbors.’  But as they’ve seen the trees grow and the neighborhood become cleaner, safer, more beautiful, we’ve actually had neighbors ask us to keep trees near their homes because they think they’re beautiful and really add to the quality of life.”

Hantz Woodlands lots are located in an area of Detroit south of Mack and east of Van Dyke.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Nearly all of Michigan is under an extreme heat warning or advisory as we approach Independence Day weekend, with the heat index — what it actually feels like outside— exceeding 105 degrees Fahrenheit in many places. 

In a heat wave with high humidity, like this one, babies, children and the elderly are at a higher risk of heat-related illness. Knowing the right precautions to take can save lives.

Dr. Phillip Levy is an emergency physician and professor at Wayne State University’s School of Medicine. He joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to explain how the body cools itself and describe essential preventative measures to take during a heatwave. 

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

More stories from The Metro

‘Tis the season for severe weather in Michigan.

That means it’s also the season when DTE officials say fallen trees can hit power lines and lead to outages.

Only about a third of the utility’s electric grid is buried underground.      

So DTE’s Director of Vegetation Management and Operations, Bill Hutchinson, says trimming trees near power lines is a priority.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Michigan has seen 22 confirmed tornadoes 2026, including three in Metro Detroit.

The National Weather Service has issued more than 50 tornado warnings statewide this year. Joel Fritsma has tracked every one of them online.

Fritsma is the chief meteorologist for Michigan Storm Chasers. The website launched in 2022 and hired Fritsma straight out of Central Michigan University, where he studied meteorology. He says their goal is to fill communication gaps between NWS and the public so people watching online have time to take shelter. 

“Every time there’s a severe thunderstorm warning or a tornado warning in the state, we’d be covering it live,” he says. “Since 2024, we haven’t missed a single warning.”

It’s “go” time

Fristma says he and his team start live streaming as soon as the weather service issues its first warnings for any severe event. And they don’t stop until the last warning comes out.

“Sometimes, it’s upwards of 10 to 11 hours,” he says. “It just depends on how long the storms want to go.”

And it doesn’t matter what time it is. Fritsma was live streaming when a brief tornado hit Lincoln Park between 2 and 3 a.m. on April 15. He doesn’t mind.

“I kind of like taking the night shift,” he says. “We always have at least one person on call throughout the day.”

Fristma says when the weather is fine, he’s still working full-time.

“We’re looking at the forecast multiple days in advance,” he says. “We host live streams prior to an event so that people can ask questions.”

A lot of people tune in

Fritsma says the website’s staff has grown from a handful of people to about 30 since 2022. And he says its audience has grown, too.

“We have over a million followers between all of our platforms,” he says. 

People can watch and interact with the live streams on Facebook and YouTube. And soon, they’ll be able to download a new mobile app.

Fritsma says the app will allow followers to get live streams on their phones and let them report storm damage.

“We have Messenger, we have Discord, there’s so many options,” he says. “And that information will be very crucial when we send it to the National Weather Service.”

The app is set to launch this summer.

The Grow Hamtramck program in the city of Hamtramck is hoping to plant a thousand trees in four years.

Community and Economic Development Director for the City of Hamtramck Isabel Allaway says it’s a part of a grant-funded urban forestry project to increase the city’s tree canopy and increase shade in the densest city in Michigan. 

“We did some inventory in 2019 to determine what available public planting spaces there were in our city, and we pursued this grant funding and were awarded it after we found over 1,200 available planting spaces at that time,” she says.

Allaway says the funding will focus on generating requests from residents to determine where to plant 1,000 trees in the city. 

Contractors, which include an arborist team and people who plant and maintain the trees in their first year of life, take care of the rest. 

“We’re about a year and a half into what is a four year program, and we’ve planted about 400 trees so far of that 1,000 trees,” she shares.

Careful planning

Allaway says the city works with an arborist team and the Davey Resource Group, the urban forestry program coordinator for this project, to determine which trees should or should not be planted in the city.

“We want to make sure that we’re maintaining species diversity and that we’re not planting too many trees of the same variety in close proximity to each other to maintain the health of the urban tree canopy,” she says.

Allaway says they the city is planting trees on the public right of way that are 3 feet to 5 feet wide, between sidewalks and streets. That’s to minimize cracks, sidewalk disruption or from trees not going too far over people’s homes.

“So we’re planning about 70% small trees in those spaces, and the residential right of ways on those residential streets are really our highest priority for generating requests,” she expresses.

Growing benefits

She says along with increasing the tree canopy, planting more trees reduces the heat index, provides shade and increases the feeling of safety for pedestrians and cars. 

“A tree-lined street reduces the speed at which someone will drive a vehicle down that street, because it narrows the sight line,” she explains.

Allaway says it also increases property values for homeowners.

“We’re really conscious that our residents live in a city that’s surrounded by sort of a collar of industrial properties, and so trying to make sure that we’re mitigating those impacts for our residents is really important to us,” she says.

Allaway says the trees should also help with absorbing stormwater and groundwater, due to the flooding in Hamtramck.

People can sign up for a tree or call the Community and Economic Development Department at 313-800-5233 extension 818 for an over-the-phone intake. They can also email treerequests@hamtramckcity.gov or fill out a survey.

The survey is available in Arabic and Bangla.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Researchers are using digital technology to improve forest management strategies.

Michigan State University scientists have employed a 3-D mapping technology called LIDAR—which stands for light detection and ranging—to make a digital model of a pine plantation.

Dave Carter is an assistant professor of Silviculture at MSU. He says LIDAR can survey areas faster than foresters.

“In terms of area, that person may only cover like 1% to 5% of the total stand, whereas a LIDAR measurement would conceivably cover like the whole stand aerially, and maybe accurately count and measure 90% to 95% of the trees in some cases.”

After LIDAR scans are uploaded, an AI model simulates different management strategies and finds the most effective ways to remove or apply treatments to trees, or even predict the effects of tree thinning.

“And we were just trying to demonstrate that that workflow was possible, where you could take that simulated thinning, pass it off to a model, have it project what the future yield would be as a result of your thinning, and then do that a number of times and figure out which method is best.”

Carter says AI can be faster and more precise than traditional methods of thinning, saving time and money. He says this technology could eventually be used by tree farmers as well as conservationists

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Keweenaw County will become home to Michigan’s first public forest authority. 

The Nature Conservancy purchased 32,000 acres of forest land in Keweenaw County in 2022. Recently, county commissioners voted to create a local board to manage 20,000 acres of land in partnership with the conservancy. 

Robin Meneguzzo is the CEO of the Keweenaw Community Foundation. She says residents have four goals for forest management. “One is to protect the cultural and historical features of the land. One is to keep it a working, healthy, and intact forest, the third was to maintain government revenues, and the fourth was to maintain public access.” 

Newly expanded legislation opened the door for the forest authority by allowing small rural communities in Michigan to manage their own forest resources.

Meneguzzo says the project is uniting members of the community. “This is a really amazing example of a community coming together that has very different views on how land should be used or managed.” She says 29 different groups worked together for around 4 years to complete the project.

Meneguzzo says the forest covers around 15% of Keweenaw County’s footprint and is used for hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking. 

Voters can choose forest authority board members in the November general election.

This story is a part of WDET’s ongoing series, the Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Michiganders have been taking their pop bottles and cans back to grocery stores for nearly half a century to collect a deposit.  But that’s changing.

A recent study shows fewer people are returning those bottles and cans—even though the containers are still being recycled.

Bill Wild is the president of the Midwest Independent Retailers Association (MIRA). He spoke with WDET’s Jerome Vaughn last week at the Mackinac Policy Conference.

Wild says his organization is working to take retailers out of the recycling chain.   He says stores don’t want the hassle of having to process bottles and cans.  And he says they have concerns about contaminants that used containers can bring into their retail space.

Wild says there are several models that Michigan could use to more efficiently recycle cans and bottles. That includes using curbside recycling, or transitioning to central drop-off centers.

Michigan’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development says the spread of hemlock woolly adelgid along Lake Michigan is increasing. Native to East Asia, hemlock woolly adelgid is an invasive insect that attacks Hemlock trees, feeding on their sap and killing them between 4 and 10 years of infestation.

According to the MDARD, it’s been detected in Allegan, Antrim, Benzie, Leelanau, Manistee, Mason, Muskegon, Oceana, Ottawa, Van Buren, and Washtenaw counties. 

Rob Miller is the Michigan’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s (MDARD) invasive species prevention and response specialist. Miller has played a crucial role in slowing the insect’s spread across the state. 

“Hemlock woolly adelgid really became a problem… between 2015 and 2017. It was [unintentionally] brought into the state on nursery stock that was infested with hemlock woolly adelgid [and] there are no native predators or diseases to keep [their] populations in check,” Miller says. 

While infestations have been found at the University of Michigan’s Nichols Arboretum, Miller is not overly concerned for Southeast Michigan. He says Southeast Michigan’s climate isn’t suited for hemlock trees, so the area doesn’t have a large population of them to worry about.

However, Miller is very concerned for the infestations detected in the west and northern regions of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, where there are hundreds of hemlock trees. 

Treatment for hemlock woolly adelgid 

Unfortunately, Miller says the infestation is too far along and too widespread for eradication to be an option for MDARD. One way the state  is supporting this effort is by funding local conservation districts that have Cooperative, Invasive Species Management Area (CISMA) programs. Miller says this partnership gives local conservation districts more resources to directly treat and prevent hemlock woolly adelgid infestations. 

For property owners, there are two different insecticides to treat hemlock woolly adelgid infestations: imidacloprid and dinotefuran. 

Miller differentiates these chemicals by the speed they move through trees; imidacloprid moves slowly and protects the tree for longer, and dinotefuran moves quicker and protects the tree for a couple of years. 

Both insecticides are neonioctinoids, which are harmful among pollinators. However, Miller explains that application techniques reduces the environmental risk of these chemicals.

“You’re applying [insecticide to protect hemlock trees] either directly to the trunk of the tree or you’re actually injecting it in the tree. You’re not spraying it all over the place…shooting it out of a high pressure hose [or] using a mist system,” he says.”

“So, when it’s applied to the tree properly, it’s very targeted and that chemical is then actually inside the tree, and we don’t have any runoff.” 

This story is part of WDET’s ongoing series, The Detroit Tree Canopy Project.