Patrick Tine reports for the Times Union that New York environmental and health officials say the smoke from Canadian wildfires that returned to the Hudson Valley Monday will begin to slowly dissipate on July 18 but air quality will remain unhealthy for sensitive groups locally. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre says currently there are 580 fires burning out of control, and another 203 are under control. So far this year, winds have shifted three times to blow the smoke into the Hudson Valley. While the earlier smoke came from many fires burning across Ontario and Quebec, this round is coming from western Canada. While it has been wet here lately, Nick Bassill, director of Research and Development at the University at Albany’s Center Of Excellence, which works with the NYS Mesonet, says it is dry in western Canada. “They’re far enough away that they haven’t been in the same muggy and wet pattern we’ve been in,” Bassill said. Read more about this story in the Times Union.