The United States is now four summers into a pattern it can no longer call unprecedented. Each summer from 2023 to today, we’ve had Canadian wildfire smoke cross the border and trigger air-quality emergencies across a widening swath of the country. Wildfire smoke exposure is linked to 40,000 deaths annually in the United States. Domestic personal protective equipment manufacturers can produce 435 million NIOSH-approved N95 respirators yearly under normal conditions, about 97% of routine U.S. demand. That capacity was built in plants across the United States to ensure the country would never again be caught without it.