For me, it's very much the reverse. I did a good bit of camping when I was younger, and living in various cities across the States and the world, had never before been near any significant wildfire.

When I first smelled the Ontario wildfires in my area 3wks ago, my inner child said "yay, campires!" :D Then the smoke rolled in and the situation rapidly turned to shit. At this point the smoke is long gone, but today's AQI is 54 here. High levels of NO2 is currently the most dangerous pollutant.

A lot of it is generational. Older generations likely did more camping. Younger generations likely did less and had to deal with fire restrictions if they did.