Wildfires in Canada pose a grave risk to 100 million people

Smoke from Canada’s worst wildfires has severely affected air quality across the country, including in Toronto and at least 15 US states, where observers have warned that more than a hundred million people are facing potentially unhealthy conditions.

Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland recorded some of the worst air quality in the United States as residents were told to stay indoors or limit outdoor activity as smoke blanketed swathes of the country just weeks after communities experienced similar disturbances from hundreds of active wildfires in Canada.

Toronto, Canada’s most populous city, ranked 10 out of 10 – “high risk” – on Environment Canada’s Air Quality Health Index, while Swiss watchdog IQAir ranked it the worst air quality of any major city in the world.

Alerts have been issued from Ontario to the northern US states of Minnesota and Michigan, and across New York to the southeastern states of North Carolina and Georgia, the latest hazardous weather conditions in most of North America’s Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions.

The air quality alerts come as the southern and midwestern regions of the United States are hit by a severe heat wave affecting several million Americans, with the National Weather Service issuing a heat index forecast of 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) Wednesday for the north and midwest. Texas.

The Chicago suburbs, whose metropolitan area is home to more than nine million people, posted its “very unhealthy” air quality index, or AQI, at 285 midday Wednesday, according to AirNow.

US Air Force One, Joe Biden, landed in the Windy City on Wednesday “through a thick layer of smoke and haze,” according to a report from the White House, before giving an economics speech there.

He then flew a presidential helicopter for the short flight to the speech site, where he provided a bird’s-eye view of the hazardous weather conditions.

Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management posted on Twitter: “Chicago air quality remains very unhealthy today. Please limit outdoor time.”

AirNow showed the Detroit area, population 4.3 million, recording a “hazardous” AQI of touching 306 before dropping slightly.

An AQI of 301 or higher reflects “emergency conditions” that are likely to affect everyone, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Wildfires — the largest on record in Canada — have been burning for two months, darkening the skies of Canada and the United States with smoke and haze containing dangerously small particles considered particularly harmful to people with pollution.

“Unhealthy levels of smoke are expected across a wide area of ​​the Midwest today,” the US National Weather Service said. “Wildfire smoke from Canada will reduce air quality over parts of the upper/middle Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes, western Ohio Valley, central Appalachia, and the mid-Atlantic, triggering air quality warnings over the region.”

In New York City, where noxious smog three weeks ago disrupted flights and forced the cancellation of outdoor events, officials warned Wednesday that air quality is expected to deteriorate again this week.

New York City’s transit authority said it will give out free KN95 masks at subway and train stations.

Pennsylvania also declared a “Code Red” on air quality on Wednesday.

Wildfire smoke spread across the Atlantic Ocean and over European countries, including Portugal and Spain.

But air quality remained mostly mild on Tuesday “because most of the smoke that reached Europe was higher in the atmosphere, where it is unlikely to affect human health,” according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Washington, D.C., was once again being weighed down by wildfire smoke, a situation that NASA scientist Ryan Stauffer, who studies air pollution and ozone, described as “absolutely monstrous.”

Scientists say human-induced climate change is helping to increase rates of wildfires, heat waves and extreme weather regimes.