If you’re seeing smoke in Detroit, blame the fires on Squirrel Island

If you’re seeing smoke and hazy skies overhead in Detroit and other areas in southeast Michigan, the culprit is the on-again, off-again blazes burning in the marshland of Squirrel Island.

The National Weather Service meteorologists in the Detroit office did a little sleuthing as to the smoke’s cause after being asked about it earlier today. At first, they thought it might have been a controlled burn or some permitted fire that was sending a plume of black smoke into the sky just across our border.

Squirrel Island, a small island on the Ontario, Canada side of Lake St. Clair, has had intermittent reports of stubborn fires in the past week, according to a local Windsor news source.

The most recent fire began around noon on Sunday, but dry conditions in the last week have helped grow other slow burns, according to the Windsorite report.

Smoke in the air was also visible on radar.

Squirrel Island is in the area of Walpole Island and a handful of other marshy islands. It’s actually part of a delta area where the St. Clair River runs into Lake St. Clair, close to Algonac, Michigan.