Ask Explore: Should I Still Go Hiking in Wildfire Smoke? As Carl Sagan once wrote, “There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions… But every question is a cry to understand the world. “The trail I was planning to hike is covered in wildfire smoke. Is it safe to get outside in these conditions, even if you’re not hiking right where the wildfire is? While AllTrails tries to post wildfire trail closures on its platform, it can be slow to update.