Media: Canada wildfires shroud US cities in hazardous smoke

Thick smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires is choking skies across parts of Canada and the northern United States, driving air quality to unhealthy levels from Toronto to the US Midwest and Northeast.

Chicago’s air quality dropped to moderate levels on August 3, with some neighbourhoods flagged as unhealthy for sensitive groups, Caliber.Az reports, citing Bloomberg.

Conditions worsened further in Milwaukee and downtown Toronto, where readings hit “unhealthy” on the air quality index. 

Alerts were also issued across much of Canada — from the Northwest Territories to Quebec — and in 10 US states stretching from Minnesota to Maine.

By August 3 evening, smoke had blanketed nearly all of New York State, except the Hudson Valley, and spread across all of Vermont and much of Maine. Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city, also saw air quality fall to unhealthy levels for vulnerable populations.

Forecasters warn the situation is unlikely to improve soon. “The overall flow is still out of the west; it doesn’t look like it is going to change much overall,” said Bob Oravec, senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Centre. “It goes out through the week.”

Canada is currently battling more than 730 wildfires, at least 210 of which are out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The fires have already consumed 6.6 million hectares (16.3 million acres) this year.

Their smoke has repeatedly drifted into the US over recent months, most recently casting a haze over Chicago’s Lollapalooza music festival on August 1.

In recent years, smoke from Canada’s massive wildfires has turned skies over Manhattan an eerie orange, crossed the Atlantic to cloud parts of Europe, and even deposited soot on Arctic ice, which scientists are studying for possible links to accelerated melting and rising global temperatures.

Steady winds out of the northwest are expected to keep funnelling smoke into the US for at least another week, forecasters say. The same weather shift that broke last week’s oppressive heat in the eastern US has also helped push the haze south.

In New York City, temperatures in Central Park fell from the upper 90s Fahrenheit to around 80°F over the weekend.

Oravec cautioned that until the blazes are brought under control, fresh waves of smoke and ash will likely continue to drift across the border.

By Aghakazim Guliyev