A breath of fresher air … sort of.

Calgarians may be breathing a little easier Thursday, but wildfire smoke from Washington State could stick around through the weekend.

A thick cloud of haze that rolled in Tuesday could be lessened with some help from Mother Nature, both in Calgary and Washington.

660’s Meteorologist David Spence says we aren’t in the clear just yet.

“[We will] continue to see some smoke [Thursday and Friday.] Perhaps some good news, some rainfall moving into Washington State for the weekend, we should start some showers [Friday] and more rain on Saturday, so that’s going to help the fire situation and hopefully get rid of some of the smoke for us and more importantly put out some of the fires down there,” Spence said.

On the flip side, the wetter weather south of the border will not likely douse all of the flames. “The rain is not going to be enough, I don’t think, to put the fires out in Washington,” Spence said, “there will still be some fires, but it may cool them down a little bit. The fires are so hot that it’s sending smoke up into the upper atmosphere and that’s why it’s being tracked into Alberta.”

Possible rain Thursday afternoon in Calgary could also help alleviate the hazy conditions, but a wind from the southwest will push more smoke over the city by Friday.

Alberta Health Services has issued air quality advisories for areas from the US border, north to the Edmonton region because of smoke from raging Washington wildfires.

The agency continues to warn even healthy people may experience irritated eyes and throat and possibly shortness of breath.

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