The colors in these images are not the result of editing. They come from smoke, carried hundreds or even thousands of miles from wildfires burning across Canada. When smoke fills the atmosphere, its fine particles scatter away the blue light and let the reds and oranges through, turning the sun into a glowing ember and the moon into a copper disk. I began noticing these skies in 2021, and in the years since they have become more frequent and more intense.

The numbers tell the same story. In 2023, Canada experienced the worst wildfire season in its recorded history, with more than 6,000 fires burning an unprecedented 15 million hectares, more than seven times the historic national annual average. The seasons that followed brought little relief. 2025 became the second-highest cumulative area burned for its time of year, second only to 2023, and in 2026, a summer that began quietly exploded past historical norms, causing widespread hazardous air quality across the U.S. Midwest and Northeast. Scientists have observed an increase, decade over decade, in the area burned, and climate change has contributed to earlier starts and later ends to the wildfire season.

Altered Skies is a record of what that change looks like from here. These skies are strikingly beautiful, but they come at a real cost: lost forests and homes, evacuated communities, and air that is unsafe to breathe.