On Tuesday, smoke from the Canadian wildfires choked a swath of the eastern and northern United States, and authorities warned residents with health risks to stay in their homes and keep windows closed.
Health alerts were issued from New York to the Carolinas, and as far west as Minnesota.
A group of people attend a morning yoga class at The Edge observation deck as a haze caused by smoke from wildfires burning in Canada hangs over Manhattan in New York, U.S., June 07, 2023. EFE/EPA/JUSTIN LANE
In New York, smoke could be tasted and smelled, and it enveloped the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and other iconic Manhattan landmarks in a blanket of orange-gray haze.
IQAir, a tech company that tracks air quality and pollution, claimed New York's air quality was one of the worst in the world Tuesday night; The city is not usually among the top 3,000.
Smoke was crossing the border from Canada, where hundreds of wildfires remain unchecked, and dangerous smoke conditions are expected to persist through Wednesday and perhaps into the end of the week.
"It's going to be here for a while," said Bryan Ramsey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in New York.
Conditions are likely to ease Wednesday, he said, before another blanket of smoke descends over the East Coast in the afternoon.
In North Carolina, the state Department of Environmental Quality said the state would be under Code Red or Code Orange air quality alerts until Wednesday due to "rapidly rising levels of fine particulate pollution attributed to smoke" from wildfires.
Authorities are urging residents, especially those with asthma, to stay indoors as much as possible.
The haze of smoke from wildfires burning in Canada hangs over Manhattan. EFE/EPA/JUSTIN LANE
In satellite images, smoke appeared especially thick in parts of Quebec, Ontario and New York.
The worst effects occurred in Canada, where more than 400 active wildfires were burning, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, aggravating an active wildfire season that is expected to worsen.
Catastrophe
More than 200 fires, many of them in Quebec, were burning out of control, the agency said.
Toronto briefly ranked among the 10 worst citiesfor air quality on Tuesday.
An estimated 26,000 people had been evacuated across Canada on Monday, Bill Blair, Canada's Minister of Public Safety, told a news conference.
"The images we've seen so far this season are some of the most serious ever seen in Canada," Blair said.
Hundreds of soldiers were deployed across Canada to help with the firefighting effort.
Many Canadians who had to evacuate in recent days had just hours to pack up before fleeing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the news conference.
"It's a moment that scares a lot of people," Trudeau said.
Trudeau said Monday that forecasts indicated that "this may be an especially severe wildfire season throughout the summer."
There have been more than 2,200 wildfires in Canada this year, according to the country's fire agency.
While it is difficult to link a specific fire outbreak to climate change, a landmark United Nations report concluded last year that therisk of devastating wildfires around the world would increase in the coming decades as climate change further intensified what the report called a "global wildfire crisis."
As the air quality crisis drags on, older adults, children and people with heart or lung conditions, including asthma, will be especially at risk, officials warned.
New York Road Runners, which owns and organizes the New York City Marathon, on Wednesday urged runners living in smoke-polluted areas to consider not running on World Runners' Day.
Jennifer Stowell, a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University School of Public Health who has studied the health effects of wildfires, told The New York Times in 2020 that wildfire smoke "can be more toxic" to the lungs than usual urban air pollution.
In Oswego, New York, on the shores of Lake Ontario, smoke created a haze that settled over the city Tuesday and gave the sky a yellowish tint most of the day.
At dusk a constant breeze blew, but the smell of smoke was still perceptible and the streets were almost empty.
Oswego County school districts canceled sporting events and outdoor extracurricular activities.
The Oswego Children's League said it was canceling all of its games as a precaution. Even a planned D-Day ceremony in nearby Fulton to honor a soldier who received the Medal of Honor for his actions on June 6, 1944, was postponed.
Although the Yankees continued to play, their minor league team canceled a game in Moosic, Pennsylvania.
Smoky city
In Manhattan on Tuesday night, some travelers were frightened by the smell.
At the subway station at West 86th Street and Broadway, at about 18:45 p.m., passengers climbed the stairs and went out into the street panting.
The sky was a strange orange-gray and the fresh air smelled of smoke.
"This morning it smelled like burnt toast, but now it's more like a bonfire," said Benjamin Lukas, 47, who was on his way to his mother's apartment to make her dinner.
"It's just wild."
Lukas worried about his mother's breathing, and hoped she would have the windows closed, despite the cost of air conditioning.
For some New Yorkers, the news of Canada's wildfires came as a surprise, even as they breathed in the smoky air.
"Is this what it is?" asked Joe Lerner, as he waited for an urban bus.
"I figured it was a fire in a building or something." His throat was already a little painful.
Suddenly, COVID masks were in high demand.
On her way home from work on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Genevieve Cruz made a quick stop at CVS on Amsterdam Avenue, hoping the pharmacy would continue to sell masks.
"I used to always wear one for COVID," he says.
"I can't believe I don't have one anymore."
c.2023 The New York Times Company
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