"Thanks to" was never meant to be a dig! It's certainly not their fault that their forests are drying out, probably from climate change. Wildfires are a tough ecological management problem.
But yes, the upper midwest and east coast essentially never have had to deal with wildfire smoke like we have now. It's as bad as when I lived in LA, but there we expected it. People in Minnesota, for example, are totally unaccustomed to woodsmog for days on end. The current air quality is very unhealthy - also unheard of. Particle counts in the 100s ppm!
