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Canada looks headed for its worst-ever year of wildfire destruction and compromised air quality as warm and dry conditions are expected to persist through the end of summer after an unprecedented start to the fire season.
With some 150 blazes, air-quality concerns have hit high-population Quebec and Ontario in particular, and darkened skies have pushed down into the upper U.S., where compromised air is expected at least into the weekend and maybe beyond.
Those conditions place the very young, the elderly and those with respiratory issues potentially in danger even if they live away from the fires. And it’s not just the migrating smoke that is concerning: dry conditions in parts of the U.S. spanning Michigan to New Jersey could spark fresh fires on this side of the border.
Read: How dangerous is U.S. air from Canada’s wildfires? Here’s how to read the EPA’s Air Quality Index.
For sure, the record-breaking season’s impact in eastern Canada and the U.S. has many weather-watchers shouting warnings that wildfires, made worse by the increased drought and extreme heat linked to climate change, aren’t limited to the relative wilds of the west, where potentially devastating fires are historically more likely and controlled burns have become more challenging.
“The distribution of fires from coast to coast this year is unusual. At this time of the year, fires usually occur only on one side of the country at a time, most often that being in the west,” Michael Norton, an official with Canada’s Natural Resources ministry, told Reuters.
As for the U.S., hazy air has discolored the skies stretching from the Ohio Valley to as far south as the Carolinas. On Wednesday and early Thursday, New York City was ranking as the most-polluted city in the world, by one measure.
Read more: New York City in top spot for worst air in the world right now
“The smoke — making the Eastern U.S. look like California at the peak of fire season — is not normal. The air is compromised from Minneapolis to D.C. to Boston, and the worst from western [New York] to around Ottawa,” said a tweet Tuesday from the Capital Weather Gang, a group of researchers and journalists covering global weather as part of the Washington Post.
How long with the U.S. be impacted?
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson, who specializes in weather forecasts for Canada, said on his site the additional plumes of smoke from wildfires in Quebec will blow over parts of the northeastern and midwestern U.S. through most of the week.
AccuWeather
So when will the smoke clear? New York City and some areas in New England could see some improvement in air quality Thursday and Friday, as a shift in the winds will direct the smoke toward southern Ontario, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Anderson said. However, while the air quality will improve near the Atlantic coast, it could become worst in and around Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit.
The weekend could bring another downturn in the air quality across the mid-Atlantic and New England.
For other parts of the country, it might not be until next week when the smoke is blown away and air quality noticeably improves.
“A significant shift in the weather pattern is expected by early next week, as a storm may form over the Midwest,” Anderson said. “[This] will completely shift the winds and force the smoke back to the north in Canada.”
For Canada and its neighbor, this early-June devastation may be a sign of more to come.
Canadian officials said this week they’re forecasting higher-than-normal fire activity across most of Canada through to August.
“Our modelling shows this may be an especially severe wildfire season throughout this summer,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference.
Coast to coast: 2023 ranks among worst known starts to Canada’s wildfire season
Canada is experiencing one of the worst starts to its wildfire season ever recorded. More than 6.7 million acres in the country have already burned in 2023, federal officials said last week.
Late Tuesday, authorities issued an evacuation order for Chibougamau, Quebec, a town of about 7,500 in the remote region of the province.
According to the province’s forest fire prevention agency, more than 150 wildfires were burning midweek, including more than 110 deemed out of control, the AP reported.
Visit The Weather Network’s wildfire hub to keep up with the latest on the active start to wildfire season across Canada.
Canada has about 9% of the world’s forests. Each year over the last 25 years, about 7,300 forest fires have occurred, according to Natural Resources Canada. The total area burned varies widely from year to year, but averages about 2.5 million hectares annually.
More than 173,000 hectares have burned this year in Quebec’s “intensive protection fire zone” — the area where normally all fires are actively fought — compared with a 10-year average of 247 hectares as of the same date, Quebec’s wildfire prevention agency, SOPFEU has said.
“The situation remains serious,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said, according to the AP. “The images that we have seen so far this season are some of the most severe we have we have ever witnessed in Canada and the current forecast for the next few months indicates the potential for continued higher-than-normal fire activity.”
Modern life has made it easier to communicate with the population when they must flee fire or stay out of tainted air, but real estate development has also meant that the line between nature and man-made expansion is blurred more than before. When houses are built close to forests or other types of natural vegetation, they pose two problems related to wildfires, research shows. First, there will be more wildfires due to human ignitions. Second, wildfires that occur will pose a greater risk to lives and homes, they will be hard to fight, and letting natural fires burn becomes impossible.
The health risks of poor air quality
Air pollution from wildfire smoke has become a significant health risk in the U.S. and is growing worse. That fact hit hard with back-to-back years of record-setting wildfire destruction in California for example in 2020 and 2021, before some relief was logged last year. Stanford University researchers found that the number of Americans who experienced at least one day with unhealthy air quality because of smoke rose by 27 times over the last decade.
Read: Non-smoking lung cancer is on the rise. Blame pollution, says American Lung Association.
Small particles in smoke that are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter — about 4% of the diameter of an average human hair — are of particular concern to air quality researchers. Exposure to this kind of pollution can cause inflammation and weaken the immune system, particularly when the tiny particles penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream.
Particulate pollution, as it’s known, may increase risk of asthma, lung cancer or other chronic lung diseases, particularly in vulnerable groups like older people, pregnant people, infants and children.
What’s more, wildfire smoke exposure might increase the risk of respiratory disease. Increases of COVID-19 and influenza have also been linked to wildfire smoke, according to some studies.
Don’t miss: Air pollution is weakening our bones, osteoporosis study suggests
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