Local News

According to the National Weather Service, the smoke was expected to clear later Monday.

Many Bay Staters woke up to the smell of smoke Monday morning as the haze from several wildfires in eastern Massachusetts moved across the region.

Around 9 a.m., Accuweather’s smoke map showed a belt of smog stretching from the North Shore south past Foxborough and covering much of the Boston metropolitan area.

This smoky smell is due to several wildfires that broke out in Massachusetts over the weekend. On Friday evening, the National Weather Service issued an advisory for all of southern New England, warning of conditions that could lead to dangerous spread of wildfires.

“Very dry conditions and gusty northwest winds will cause fires to spread quickly if they break out,” NWS Boston wrote in a Friday warning.

The agency reiterated its warning in another statement on Monday.

“Are you waking up to the smell of smoke this morning (Southern New England)?” Numerous wildfires broke out over the weekend, with the largest wildfire consuming more than 100 acres in Salem, MA,” NWS Boston wrote on X.

Data from the National Interagency Fire Center shows dozens of new wildfires across Massachusetts, including the Salem fire and another in Millbury that killed a woman Saturday evening. In Middleton, firefighters spent much of Sunday battling a brush fire near power lines next to Upton Hills Road and the Middleton Reservoir. According to the Middleton Fire Department, firefighters withdrew from the area overnight as darkness fell. Shortly before 8 p.m. on Sunday, the authority announced that the fire was estimated to be 50 hectares in size.

Overnight and into early Monday morning, firefighters in Cambridge responded to multiple calls about a “smell of smoke” coming from the North Coast bushfires, the Cambridge Fire Department noted in a post on X. According to NWS Boston, a surface inversion – essentially a temperature difference between the layers of air in the sky – kept the smoke trapped near the ground.

However, NWS Boston said the smoke was expected to “mix” later in the morning.

Elsewhere on social media, Greater Boston residents and journalists shared their photos, videos and complaints about the smog and the associated campfire smell.

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Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work covers public transportation, crime, health and everything in between.

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