www.nytimes.com Open in urlscan Pro
151.101.129.164  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Skip to contentSkip to site index

Section Navigation
SEARCH

SUBSCRIBE FOR $0.50 (Cdn)/WEEKLog in
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Today’s Paper
SUBSCRIBE FOR $0.50 (Cdn)/WEEK


WILDFIRE SMOKE

 * Updates
 * Track the Smoke
 * Safety Tips
 * Do Masks Help?
 * What’s the Air Quality Index?


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


LiveUpdated 
June 29, 2023, 5:22 p.m. ET50 minutes ago
50 minutes ago


WILDFIRE SMOKESMOKE FROM CANADA FIRES STRETCHES FROM MIDWEST TO EAST COAST

Air quality warnings were issued in multiple states, including New York,
although conditions were not forecast to be as bad as they were earlier this
month.


 * Give this articleShare full article
 * 
 * 

SEE OUR MAPS OF AIR QUALITY AND SMOKE ›

Pittsburgh
Very Unhealthy
Detroit
Very Unhealthy
Washington, D.C.
Unhealthy
Baltimore
Unhealthy
New York
Unhealthy

Source: AirNow · Data as of 4 p.m. Eastern.


 1.  Washington
     Kenny Holston/The New York Times
 2.  Manhattan
     Anadolu Agency via Reuters
 3.  Pittsburgh
     Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press
 4.  Manhattan
     Dave Sanders for The New York Times
 5.  Milwaukee
     Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, via Associated Press
 6.  Kingston, Ontario
     Lars Hagberg/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
 7.  Alexandria, Va.
     Tim Kays via Storyful
 8.  Indianapolis
     Indianapolis Star/The Indianapolis Star, via Associated Press
 9.  St. Paul, Minn.
     Deb Pastner/Star Tribune, via Getty Images
 10. Manhattan
     Dave Sanders for The New York Times
 11. Harrisburg, Pa.
     Matt Rourke/Associated Press

 1.  
 2.  
 3.  
 4.  
 5.  
 6.  
 7.  
 8.  
 9.  
 10. 
 11. 


Pinned

Liam Stack and Ed Shanahan


HERE’S WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE WILDFIRE SMOKE.

Three weeks after Canadian wildfire smoke, propelled south by stiff winds,
blanketed New York City in an eerie, unhealthy haze, people across the Midwest
experienced conditions similar to what New Yorkers confronted in early June,
when a plume of smoke bathed the city in an acrid cloud over two days.

The skies were especially smoky in cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh and Columbus,
where people donned face masks, outdoor events were canceled or delayed and
health care centers saw an uptick in respiratory complaints.

“It’s not a good day to be in Columbus,” said Dr. Eric Adkins, an emergency
physician at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, where complaints of
sore throats, fatigue and breathing problems were higher than normal.

In New York, officials braced for the possibility that dangerous hazy air could
return to the city and its surrounding counties, but air quality there was
generally good to moderate on Thursday afternoon. Conditions upstate were a
different story, however.

“It is still appropriate for most people in the city to enjoy the outdoors
today,” said Jackie Bray, the commissioner of the New York State Division of
Homeland Security and Emergency Service, a news briefing on Thursday. “That’s
not true upstate.”

Although air quality across the state was better on Thursday than it was three
weeks ago, Governor Kathy Hochul said during a news briefing that the air was
“unhealthy in every corner of the state of New York.” It could remain that way
until next week’s Fourth of July celebrations, she said.

Here’s what else to know on Thursday:

 * Warnings were issued in other parts of the Northeast, including the entire
   state of Pennsylvania, and Mid-Atlantic, including Washington, with
   vulnerable residents being encouraged to stay indoors.

 * By Thursday morning, there were at least 500 active wildfires in Canada,
   according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. More than half were
   burning out of control.

 * Climate research suggests that heat and drought associated with global
   warming are major reasons behind the number of fires and their intensity.
   Canada’s wildfire season does not typically begin until early July, meaning
   the effect on air quality in the northern United States could persist for
   weeks at least.

Show more
June 29, 2023, 5:22 p.m. ET50 minutes ago
50 minutes ago

Anushka Patil

Landmark buildings in Washington, D.C., have been shrouded in smoke this
afternoon. The capital currently has some of the worst air quality in the world,
according to a ranking of major cities by IQAir.

Image

Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
June 29, 2023, 4:21 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago

Judson Jones

Meteorologist and reporter

Although smoke will continue to impact the East, the air quality is expected to
improve for much of the country going into the weekend, forecasters with the
Weather Prediction Center said on Thursday afternoon. The ongoing thunderstorm
activity in the Midwest and the overall dispersion of smoke across the region
will ultimately result in improving air quality conditions.


AIR QUALITY

Good






Hazardous
© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap Improve this map
 * X
 * +
 * -

Source: AirNow Note: Data is as of 6 p.m. Eastern on June 29, 2023. By Matthew
Bloch and Bea Malsky



ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 29, 2023, 3:35 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago

Lola Fadulu

Reporting from New York City

Governor Kathy Hochul of New York announced in a statement on Thursday afternoon
that the air quality health advisory would remain in effect through Friday.

June 29, 2023, 3:31 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago

Lola Fadulu and Jesse McKinley


UPSTATE NEW YORK BEARS THE BRUNT OF THE STATE’S SMOKE POLLUTION.

Image

Smoke from wildfires burning in Canada turned the sky over Rochester, N.Y., a
hazy orange on Wednesday. Air quality remained in the “unhealthy” range in
several regions of New York State on Thursday.Credit...Shawn Dowd/Rochester
Democrat and Chronicle/USA Today Network


Air quality alerts were in place in several upstate New York cities on Thursday
afternoon as the plume of wildfire smoke drifted east.

Officials in Buffalo — the state’s second most populous city, on the banks of
Lake Erie — said that conditions had improved since Wednesday, but cautioned
that the city remained under an air quality alert. In Rochester, on Lake
Ontario, officials distributed masks at a local jazz festival on Wednesday
night, and the airport was still reporting “widespread haze” on Thursday. In the
Hudson Valley, where picturesque towns beckon to New York City residents during
the summer months, a consistent gray miasma hung all morning, after days of rain
had cleared skies earlier in the week.

“It is still appropriate for most people in the city to enjoy the outdoors
today,” Jackie Bray, the commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland
Security and Emergency Service, said during a news conference on Thursday
morning. “That’s not true upstate.”

The air quality index remained in the “unhealthy” range in several regions of
New York State, including Central New York and Eastern Lake Ontario. A statewide
air quality health advisory was in effect through Friday.

In Western New York, some residents said they had been unaffected by the smoke,
while others had changed their plans because of it.

At the food court of the Walden Galleria mall near Buffalo, Lakisha Tyson said
that even though she and her two children, who are 16 and 7, did not have health
conditions that affected their breathing, she had decided not to take them to
the park.

“It’s not a good smell; it’s a toxic smell,” said Ms. Tyson, 39, of Rochester.
“You have to wear a mask.”

Zackary Martin, 22, of Springville, N.Y., southeast of Buffalo, said he had
opted not to go on a hike on his favorite trail because of the poor air quality.

“It pretty much made me re-evaluate my plans for the whole week,” he said.

Officials have encouraged residents to monitor the air quality index where they
live, and to be aware of how their bodies are reacting to the air quality:
Coughing, a runny nose and watery eyes could be signs that particulate matter
has been absorbed into the lungs.

“I had a sore throat all day yesterday,” said Shawna Brown, 41, of Olcott, N.Y.,
on the shores of Lake Ontario. She added that the smoke had prevented her from
running errands yesterday.

The situation on Thursday, though unhealthy, was not as hazardous as it was
earlier this month, when smoke from the Canada wildfires turned the New York
skies a hazy orange and the air smelled of burning wood. At that time, the index
was between 300 and 500 in some parts of the state.

Gov. Hochul said that the smoke was expected to linger across the state into
Friday. She said that the wind would most likely dissipate over the next couple
of days, but that it was impossible “at this point to predict what’ll happen for
the holiday celebrations on Monday and Tuesday.”

Lauren D’Avolio contributed reporting.

Show more
June 29, 2023, 3:09 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago

Meagan Campbell and Dan Bilefsky


CANADIAN WILDFIRES HAVE MOBILIZED FIREFIGHTERS FROM THE U.S., AUSTRALIA, FRANCE
AND SOUTH AFRICA.

Image

A team of firefighters from France awaiting an airlift in northern
Quebec.Credit...Renaud Philippe for The New York Times


Jon Blackstone, a forest ranger from Maine, who is working as a firefighter
battling wildfires in northern Quebec, is happy he paid some attention during
French classes in high school.

Having some familiarity with the language is coming in handy for his new
temporary job as a team safety officer, managing 220 firefighter staff and 12
helicopters. The team is currently fighting five wildfires covering nearly
60,000 hectares, or 148,263 acres, in Quebec, a Francophone majority province.

The wildfires convulsing Canada have led to the mobilization of more than 1,500
international firefighters from across the world, according to the Canadian
Interagency Forest Fire Centre, with help arriving from the United States,
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Costa Rica, Chile, Spain, Portugal, France
and Mexico.

Nearly 400 American firefighters have been fighting fires in Alberta, Quebec and
British Columbia.

Image

Flames rise above the treetops in Northern Quebec, earlier this
month.Credit...Renaud Philippe for The New York Times

When not managing the safety of his fellow firefighters, Mr. Blackstone and his
team are based at a remote camp, about an hour and a half drive to Baie-Comeau,
a city located on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River.

As a team safety officer in Quebec, Mr. Blackstone said he had so far only
needed to respond to minor injuries including cuts, twisted ankles and twisted
knees.

Mr. Blackstone, 56, began fighting fires during his college years when he worked
as a backwoods ranger, often getting called in to help with forest fires. Later,
he and his wife had twin sons, who are now 23 years old. When the twins were
growing up, he recalled, the family lived in the woods in a ranger station.

“We had a fire engine parked in the yard,” he said. “Because that’s what we
did.”

The Americans on his team also include firefighters from New York State and New
Hampshire. To communicate with the Québécois firefighters who primarily speak
French, he said the Americans had to stop using so much slang.

“A lot of times, if we have a fire that’s growing fast, we’ll call it a
‘gobbler,’” Mr. Blackstone said. “We naturally use so much jargon, and it made
us aware that we’ve just got to slow it up and use the full words on both
sides.”

Mr. Blackstone said his French classes from high school were coming in handy,
along with frequent past visits to Quebec City with his wife, Dawn, over
Christmas, which had given him a sense of the culture. Nevertheless, he said he
mostly relies on translators to avoid any confusion.

Show more


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 29, 2023, 2:51 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago

Carrie Blackmore Smith, Michael Wines and Ida Lieszkovszky


SOME RESIDENTS IN OHIO START TO VENTURE OUT AS THE AIR QUALITY GRADUALLY
IMPROVES.

Image

Conditions in Cincinnati and the rest of Ohio improved over those of Wednesday,
when the air quality in several cities was considered very
unhealthy.Credit...Joshua A. Bickel/Associated Press


In Ziegler Park in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, children
splashed around at the pool on Thursday as smoky conditions persisted. There had
been no talk of closing because of the air quality, said pool manager Justin
Gunn.

“The only real change is the pool has to be cleaned more,” Gunn said.

Pool staff used a coagulant to pick up the tiny particles. No one has complained
about health issues related to the air, he said.

Outside the pool, under a white tent, Teylar Lockett kept an eye on the children
at the summer camp she helps manage. Some parents had called to see if the camp
was still being held outside all day at the park, she said, but there had been
no talk of canceling and no health problems had been reported by camp goers or
their parents.

Smoky conditions in Cleveland had also improved somewhat since Wednesday as the
heavy smell of smoke had dissipated, but there was still an air quality alert in
effect and the Northeast Ohio area was still covered in dense haze. The Air
Quality Index for Cleveland was at 182, down from yesterday’s high of 291, but
still considered unhealthy.

Steve Hill, 65, of Strongsville, a Cleveland suburb, was checking out the smoky
skyline from the city’s Tremont neighborhood with friends visiting from the
Czech Republic. He had planned to take his friends jet skiing on the lake, but
they will be visiting the U.S.S. Cod submarine instead.

“We’re keeping our exposure to the outside at a minimum, unfortunately,” he
said. “It’s supposed to improve so tomorrow we’re going to be out on the lake.”

In Columbus, a thick haze had settled over the city at midday, and overall air
quality dipped into the very unhealthy range during the early morning before
settling back to unhealthy. Measurements for some pollutants, like carbon
dioxide and nitric oxide, spiked well beyond levels seen earlier this week.

“It’s not a good day to be in Columbus,” said Dr. Eric Adkins, an emergency
physician and pulmonary critical care specialist at Ohio State University’s
Wexner Medical Center.

The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission said that Wednesday had been the worst
day for air quality in two decades, and Thursday was not expected to be that
much better.

Dr. Adkins said complaints of sore throats, fatigue and breathing problems in
the medical center’s two hospitals and citywide urgent care centers were
noticeably higher.

Show more
June 29, 2023, 2:39 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago

Michael Wines

Reporting from Columbus, Ohio

“It’s not a good day to be in Columbus,” said Dr. Eric Adkins, an emergency
physician and pulmonary critical care specialist at Ohio State University’s
Wexner Medical Center. He said complaints of sore throats, fatigue and breathing
problems in the medical center’s two hospitals and citywide urgent care centers
were noticeably higher.

June 29, 2023, 1:35 p.m. ET5 hours ago
5 hours ago

Melissa Hoppert

Because of poor air quality, the Pittsburgh Pirates delayed the start of their
game against the San Diego Padres, originally scheduled at 12:35 p.m. After
consulting with Major League Baseball and the players’ association, the Pirates
decided to start the game at 1:20 p.m. The current air quality index in the city
is over 230 and considered “very unhealthy.”

Image

Credit...Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 29, 2023, 1:05 p.m. ET5 hours ago
5 hours ago

Meagan Campbell and Dan Bilefsky


IN NOVA SCOTIA, RAINS AND TIRELESS FIREFIGHTING BRING RELIEF.

Image

Firefighters in Canada’s Nova Scotia province have brought the area’s wildfires
under control, according to government officials. Credit...Erin Clark/The Boston
Globe, via Getty Images


As Canada confronts its worst wildfire season in decades, there is at least some
cautious optimism in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, where authorities say
wildfires are now under control thanks to the work of firefighters and the
arrival of long-awaited rains.

“The wildfires are under control and are being investigated,” the Nova Scotia
government said in a statement this week.

In late May, a blaze near Halifax, the province’s capital, forced the evacuation
of more than 16,000 people, enveloping the city in an apocalyptic haze. The
wildfires set off fear in Halifax, a normally serene maritime city on Canada’s
Atlantic coast that was founded in 1749 and served as a British naval and
military base.

Around the same time, one of the province’s biggest ever wildfires broke out in
Shelburne County, a rural, coastal area of about 14,000 people known for its
white sandy beaches and handsome lighthouse. About half the county’s population
was forced to flee their homes and the fire destroyed about 150 structures,
including an estimated 60 houses.

In Halifax, a university and naval city, the focus had shifted from fighting
fires to helping to rebuild the lives of those Nova Scotians who lost their
homes. In Shelburne County, local residents also said that a fragile sense of
normalcy was beginning to return.

Charles Lyle has been running a grocery store in Shelburne County for nearly 50
years. He did not lose his home, but during the worst days of the wildfires, his
sales dropped by more than half with the absence of customers.

“I’ll tell you, it’s been a tight squeeze,” he said. “Our sales were really hurt
badly, and it’s slow coming back. There were people that came in with little
money, and I sort of gave them bargains on things that were close to expiration
date. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to survive.”

Mr. Lyle, 72, said it seemed the air quality had improved markedly and that his
sister, who had to evacuate her house, had been able to return home.

One byproduct of the fire, according to Mr. Lyle: more worshipers in sanctuary
pews.

“I saw all the parishioners going to church,” he said. “It just makes you
wonder, maybe there is a God. I pray every day and night. It doesn’t hurt to
believe in something. It gives them hope.”

Show more
June 29, 2023, 11:52 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Michael Wines

Reporting from Columbus, Ohio

The view in downtown Columbus, Ohio, which appears less grim than yesterday, but
the weather service disagrees: the air quality index is at about 175 and nitric
oxide and carbon dioxide are at highs for the week.

Image

Credit...Michael Wines/The New York Times
June 29, 2023, 11:49 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Lola Fadulu

Reporting from New York City

Governor Kathy Hochul of New York said officials expected the wind to dissipate
over the next couple of days but that “it is impossible for us at this point to
predict what will happen before the holiday celebrations on Monday and Tuesday.”


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 29, 2023, 11:37 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Lola Fadulu

Reporting from New York City

“Air quality is unhealthy in every corner of the state of New York,” New York
Governor Kathy Hochul said during a news briefing on Thursday morning. She said
that the numbers did not seem to be trending as high as they were three weeks
ago but that there were still public health risks.

June 29, 2023, 11:47 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Lola Fadulu

Reporting from New York City

“It is still appropriate for most people in the city to enjoy the outdoors
today,” said Jackie Bray, the commissioner of the New York State Division of
Homeland Security and Emergency Service. “That’s not true upstate.”

June 29, 2023, 11:27 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Dan Bilefsky

Reporting from Montreal


THE AIR QUALITY IN TORONTO IS AMONG THE WORLD’S WORST.

Image

Smoke from wildfires in Canada turned Toronto’s air quality into the worst in
the world for a time on Wednesday.Credit...Ian Willms/Getty Images


Toronto has several distinctions. It is Canada’s largest city and its financial
center. It hosts the Toronto Raptors, which won the N.B.A. championship in 2019.
And it is the birthplace of the hip-hop megastar Drake.

On Wednesday, the city gained another, less celebratory distinction: It had
among the worst air quality in the world for a time, according to IQAir, a Swiss
air quality technology company, as smoke from wildfires in northeastern Ontario
and Quebec billowed into the area, turning the air hazy and acrid.

Environment Canada warned on Thursday that poor air quality in the Toronto area
would likely last into Friday. “Wildfire smoke can be harmful to everyone’s
health even at low concentrations,” it said in a statement. “People with lung
disease (such as asthma) or heart disease, older adults, children, pregnant
people, and people who work outdoors are at higher risk of experiencing health
effects caused by wildfire smoke.’

The poor air quality is forcing some changes to daily life. Some residents were
postponing their daily runs or venturing outside wearing N95 masks. Outdoor
activities at some city-run day care centers this week were put on hold.

The Toronto Jazz Festival, a gathering known for its music-fueled outdoor
revelry, wrote on its Facebook page that it was canceling outdoor programming on
Wednesday “to ensure the safety of our guests, artists, crew and volunteers.”
Outdoor events were set to resume on Thursday.

Canada has been experiencing its worst wildfire season in decades with fires
burning from British Columbia on the west coast to Nova Scotia on the other side
of the country, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Climate research suggests that heat and drought associated with global warming
are major reasons for the increase in the bigger and stronger fires.

As fire updates have become a daily occurrence on national television news
broadcasts, the blazes have also helped unite a vast and sometimes polarized
nation, with volunteers, firefighters and army reservists from other provinces
rushing in to lend a hand. Firefighters from abroad have also come to help,
including from the United States, Mexico, Spain, South Africa and France.

Show more
June 29, 2023, 11:14 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Dan Bilefsky

Reporting from Montreal

The Toronto Jazz Festival, a gathering known for its music-fueled outdoor
revelry, was set to resume its outdoor programming a day after it canceled
outdoor events “to ensure the safety of our guests, artists, crew and
volunteers.”


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 29, 2023, 11:10 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Jon Hurdle

Reporting from Philadelphia


‘I’M DEFINITELY CONCERNED ABOUT IT,’ A PHILADELPHIA RESIDENT SAYS OF THE AIR
QUALITY.

In Philadelphia, where downtown skyscrapers were shrouded in haze, Samantha
Balistreri was walking to work with her husband, Jeffrey, and their 1-year-old
son, Jude, from the Fairmount section of the city early Thursday morning.

Ms. Balistreri, a physical therapist, said that if she had known that the city’s
air quality index had returned to an unhealthy level, she would have worn a mask
or spent more time inside.

“I’m definitely concerned about it,” she said, adding that she was mostly
worried about her son.

Image

Samantha and Jeffrey Balistreri with their son, Jude, in Philadelphia on
Thursday.Credit...Jon Hurdle for The New York Times

Catherine Orsini, a teacher from Cedar Grove, N.J. who was visiting
Philadelphia, was not wearing a mask as she walked past Philadelphia City Hall
around midday Thursday, despite the deterioration in the city’s air quality
since the start of the day.

Ms. Orsini said she had no plans to wear a mask or take other precautions to
shield herself from the smoky air. But she said she was concerned about the new
episode of poor air quality so soon after the last one in early June.

“I don’t like it; it’s out of our control,” she said, but added that the air
problems were minor compared with the coronavirus pandemic. “You are a bit less
cautious, perhaps, because you’ve gone through that,” she said.

Show more
June 29, 2023, 11:07 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Dave Sanders

Reporting from New York City

With Manhattan’s air quality index climbing past 100 on Thursday, Times Square’s
ubiquitous costumed workers wore face masks to protect themselves from the
unhealthy particles in the air.

Image

Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times
June 29, 2023, 10:59 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Christopher Maag


ON A BAD AIR DAY IN NEW YORK, RESIDENTS GO ABOUT THEIR ROUTINES.

Image

Chris Klapper and her dog, Dude, walking through the East Williamsburg
neighborhood of Brooklyn on Thursday morning, when the air quality index was
105.Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times


As smoke descended on the neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek in Brooklyn
and Queens, residents went about their lives. Most did not wear masks, and few
took any other precautions.

The neighborhood of East Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, has some of the worst air
quality in New York City on average, according to reporting by the city’s
Department of Health.

On Thursday morning, as air quality worsened, Chris Klapper took precautions.
Ms. Klapper’s dog, a gray 68-pound mutt named Dude, needed a walk. Before
leaving her apartment, Ms. Klapper checked an air quality app on her phone.
Local readings gave an air quality index of 92, so she donned a white KN95 mask.
As she and Dude walked, the A.Q.I. soared to 105.

“I always knew the air quality here was going to be bad,” said Ms. Klapper, 53,
an installation artist. “But when you’re an artist, you move to this
neighborhood because it’s cheap. So what are you going to do?”

Ms. Klapper and her husband recently bought a building in the Hudson Valley,
where forecasts predicted the air quality will grow worse than New York City’s
on Thursday. They planned to spend the day there, making renovations. “We’ll
wear masks, and we’ll keep the windows closed,” she said.

Nearby, Dustin Rex stamped out a cigarette on the sidewalk. He hadn’t heard
about the air quality warnings, he said, so he took no extra precautions.

Image

Dustin Rex and his dog, Ebi, in East Williamsburg on Thursday.Credit...Brittainy
Newman for The New York Times

“I know the air is bad here,” said Mr. Rex, 36, adding that “everything is dusty
because of the cement factory” across the street from his apartment.

He, too, would spend the day in poor-quality air, working on a real estate
project. Mr. Rex recently bought a home in the Poconos, he said. He planned to
load furniture into his pickup truck, drive it to Pennsylvania, and unload. Air
in the Poconos was predicted to be even worse than in New York City, but he said
he was not concerned.

“I mean, we have old windows in this building. They don’t do too much” to keep
dirty air out, he said. “I’m not very worried about it.”

Enrique Basaba pushed a shopping cart piled with seven used bicycles that he
said he had just bought and planned to fix and resell. Walking around East
Williamsburg on Thursday, Mr. Basaba said he could tell the air quality was
poor. His breathing felt labored, he said. But he had not heard about the return
of wildfire smoke, so he worked without a mask or his asthma inhaler.

“When the air was bad a few weeks ago, I used my inhaler a lot,” said Mr.
Basaba, 42. “I didn’t bring it with me today. But now I can smell the air. It’s
not good.”

Image

“Now I can smell the air. It’s not good,” said Enrique Basaba of Brooklyn on
Thursday.Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

For years, Susan Lee ran an air purifier in her home in Maspeth, Queens —
another neighborhood that tends to have worse air quality than other parts of
the city — and turned the machine off when she left for work. Ever since the
skies over New York turned orange in early June, however, she’s kept the
purifier running all the time.

Besides that, she made no special plans today when she learned the air quality
would drop again. She and her mother continued planting creeping myrtle seeds in
their side yard.

“If it gets visibly worse out here, I guess we’ll go inside,” said Ms. Lee,
whose family has lived in Maspeth since 1986. “So far, anyway, this isn’t so
bad.”

At Frank Principe Park in Maspeth, Justin Murillo was playing soccer, unmasked,
with a friend.

The park lies beside the Long Island Expressway, and planes on final approach to
La Guardia Airport flew low overhead. But rather than petroleum fumes or
wildfire smoke, Mr. Murillo, 23, was more concerned about the Department of
Sanitation’s trash depot a few blocks away.

“The air here always smells bad because of that place,” he said.

When he rode his bike to the park from his home in Elmhurst, Queens, on Thursday
morning, Mr. Murillo didn’t know that forecasters were predicting poor air
quality in New York. When he learned of the alerts, he did not change his plans.

“I like it here. There’s always space to play,” Mr. Murillo said. By 10:30 a.m.,
conditions in the park seemed fine. The local air quality index read 107,
qualifying it as “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” according to the state’s
Department of Environmental Conservation.

“Covid happened, and everybody got so scared to go outside,” Mr. Murillo said.
“I just don’t want to deal with it. It doesn’t seem that bad out. It’s just
summer in New York.”

Show more


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 29, 2023, 10:43 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Campbell Robertson

National correspondent

Pittsburgh air quality was in the red again Thursday morning, with tops of
downtown skyscrapers disappearing in the smoke. “It looks pretty gross out
there,” said Maria Montaño, the mayor’s press secretary. For the second day in a
row, city pools were closed. A city-sponsored event was postponed — one that had
been scheduled to take place inside — but it was at an un-air-conditioned
recreation center that depends on fans and open doors.

June 29, 2023, 10:02 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Jon Hurdle

Reporting from Philadelphia

Downtown Philadelphia was shrouded in haze on Thursday as the city government
rated the air quality as “unhealthy.”

Image

Credit...Jon Hurdle for The New York Times
June 29, 2023, 9:41 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Lola Fadulu

Reporting from New York City

The air quality in New York is deteriorating this morning and is now considered
unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children, those who are pregnant, and
people with lung disease, asthma or heart disease. That equates to about one in
every six New Yorkers, according to James McDonald, the commissioner of the New
York State Department of Health.

Image

Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times
June 29, 2023, 9:31 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Judson Jones

Meteorologist and reporter

The Midwest, which was blanketed by smoke on Wednesday, will likely start to see
improvements in air quality throughout the day on Thursday, especially as severe
storms move through the region. However, these storms will bring their own
hazards, as damaging winds are possible in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa.


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 29, 2023, 8:58 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Lola Fadulu

Reporting from New York City

The air quality index in Brooklyn was 105 this morning, which is considered
unhealthy for sensitive groups. The index for the borough was in the 50s for
most of Wednesday, but crept into the 60s by the evening.

Image

Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times
June 29, 2023, 8:52 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Dave Sanders

Reporting from New York City

Many commuters in Manhattan donned face masks on Thursday morning, as the air
quality in New York City began to deteriorate thanks to wildfire smoke moving
into the area.


June 29, 2023, 8:50 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Judson Jones

Meteorologist and reporter

In some of the places where smoke is worse this morning, like Washington, stable
air is trapping the layer of smoke near the surface. Until that air near the
surface rises and the wind direction begins to shift this afternoon, the air
quality in that region will likely remain poor through midday.

June 29, 2023, 8:44 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Kenny Holston

Reporting from Washington

The sky in Washington has turned visibly hazy, as smoke from the wildfires
burning in Canada arrived in the area on Thursday. The Air Quality Index in the
nation’s capital was 163 this morning, indicating an unhealthy level of air
pollution.

Image

Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 29, 2023, 8:00 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

John Keefe

Weather data editor

The wildfire smoke has arrived in New York City, turning what would otherwise be
bright blue skies into a pale blue-gray.

Image

Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times
June 29, 2023, 6:14 a.m. ETJune 29, 2023
June 29, 2023

Chris Stanford

Breaking news editor

Here is the Air Quality Index for several major cities this morning. (New York
is at a moderate 83.) The index runs from 0 to 500; the higher the number, the
greater the level of air pollution. An A.Q.I. of 201 or more is considered very
unhealthy. Find your city here.

Select Cities Air Quality A.Q.I. Pittsburgh Very Unhealthy 230 Detroit Very
Unhealthy 208 Washington, D.C. Unhealthy 174 Baltimore Unhealthy 174
Philadelphia Unhealthy 169 Cincinnati Unhealthy 157 New York Unhealthy 153
Chicago Unhealthy for some 133 Charlotte Unhealthy for some 128 Buffalo Moderate
98

Source: AirNow · Data is as of 4 p.m. Eastern

Canadian Wildfire Smoke Causes Poor Air Quality From Midwest to East Coast: Live
Updates - The New York Times
June 28, 2023, 5:12 p.m. ETJune 28, 2023
June 28, 2023

Delger Erdenesanaa


HERE’S A CLOSER LOOK AT THE EMERGING SCIENCE OF TRACING SMOKE BACK TO WILDFIRES.

Image

Wildfire smog blanketed Montreal on Monday.Credit...Andre Pichette/EPA, via
Shutterstock


As smoke from wildfires crosses state and international borders more frequently,
tracking and studying it is increasingly important for shaping air quality and
health measures around the world.

An upcoming study from researchers at Stanford University offers a new way to
trace far-flung smoke and pollution back to individual wildfires of origin.

What’s burning in a wildfire determines what kind of pollution is in the smoke.
A forest fire burns differently from a fire in a swamp, or a fire that burns
buildings. As smoke travels, its chemical composition may change with time and
distance.



The findings could help officials to determine which wildfires are likely to
have the biggest health consequences for the greatest number of people, and to
allocate firefighting resources accordingly.

“We don’t find that fire suppression resources are often spent on the fires that
are most damaging from a health perspective,” said Jeff Wen, a Ph.D. candidate
in Earth system science at Stanford and the study’s lead author.

Others have done similar research before, but at a much smaller scale. The new
study, not yet peer reviewed, would be the first to cover the whole contiguous
United States, according to the authors.

“Historically, we haven’t really been able to study those types of questions at
a broad spatial, temporal scale,” Mr. Wen said.

It’s clear that wildfires have become more frequent and intense in recent years,
fueled in part by climate change’s role in drying out many landscapes. Less
clear to scientists has been how smoke from these fires has changed over time.
The new study shows that as fires have worsened, so has their smoke: From 2016
to 2020, the U.S. population experienced double the smoke pollution that it did
10 years earlier, from 2006 to 2010. While the study focused on historical data,
some of its methods can also be used to predict where smoke from a new fire will
travel.

The researchers focused on a pollutant called particulate matter, made of very
small solid particles floating in the air, which can enter people’s lungs and
blood and lead to problems such as difficulty breathing, inflammation and
damaged immune cells.

Image

A helicopter survey of wildfires burning near Mistissini, Quebec, this
month.Credit...Canadian Forces, via Reuters

Using their new method, Mr. Wen and his team ranked all of the wildfires
observed in the United States from April 2006 to December 2020 by the resulting
smoke exposure. They found that the worst fire by smoke exposure during this
period was the 2007 Bugaboo Fire, which burned more than 130,000 acres in and
around the Okefenokee Swamp, straddling Georgia and Florida.

This initially surprised the researchers, since Western states tend to have more
large fires. But the Eastern Seaboard is more densely populated, so smoke from
the Bugaboo Fire didn’t have to go far to affect many millions of people.
Peatlands like the Okefenokee Swamp also tend to burn slowly, Mr. Wen said,
releasing more particulate matter into the air.

The worst fires in their ranking did not match up very well with the worst fires
in traditional rankings, such as acres burned or buildings and infrastructure
lost. More firefighting resources were not necessarily deployed to the smokiest
fires, either.

“We often suppress fires mainly because of structures and immediate threat to
life,” said Bonne Ford, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University
who was not involved in this study. While it’s important to save lives and help
rural communities in immediate harm’s way, it’s “short-term thinking” to focus
only on those immediately dangerous fires and ignore others that may harm many
people farther away through smoke exposure.

Dr. Ford and others have studied wildfire smoke patterns, as well as the
resulting exposure to particulate matter pollution. But the Stanford researchers
have pulled off something new by putting the two together, she said, especially
over so many years and so much land area.

One aspect of the study Dr. Ford took issue with was treating all human exposure
to particulate matter in smoke the same, no matter where it happened. Some
people are more vulnerable to air pollution, she said, depending on their age,
pre-existing health conditions, other environmental factors and whether they can
take precautions such as wearing face masks outside and using air filters
inside. Future research could combine Mr. Wen’s methods with existing
vulnerability indexes, Dr. Ford said.

There are also more precise ways to track and predict where smoke travels,
according to John Lin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah who
was not involved in the study. Aside from that, Dr. Lin thought the Stanford
study would be very useful in figuring out the real human toll of wildfire
smoke.

Smoke traveling long distances is “the new normal,” he said. This reality
challenges the ways governments have historically dealt with air quality,
through regulations like the Clean Air Act. Now that pollution is increasingly
crossing borders, Dr. Lin said, the way that people manage air quality should
evolve accordingly.


Show more


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 28, 2023, 4:49 p.m. ETJune 28, 2023
June 28, 2023

Lola Fadulu

Reporting from New York City

The air quality health advisory in New York will remain in effect through
Thursday, officials said on Wednesday afternoon. Basil Seggos, the commissioner
of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said that the
impact of the smoke will likely be seen through Friday and possibly over
Independence Day weekend. “We expect that plume to move in the state a bit more
quickly than it moves out of it,” Seggos said.

June 28, 2023, 4:48 p.m. ETJune 28, 2023
June 28, 2023

Judson Jones

Meteorologist and reporter

Forecasters still lack confidence in how much smoke would reach coastal cities
like New York by Thursday. The various forecast computer models are not in
agreement, but some show smoke near the surface with heavier concentrations just
west of New York City.

June 28, 2023, 3:32 p.m. ETJune 28, 2023
June 28, 2023

The New York Times

The climate desk at The Times has been collecting reader questions — like are
wildfires getting worse? — and has started answering them here.

June 28, 2023, 10:29 a.m. ETJune 28, 2023
June 28, 2023

Raymond Zhong and Delger Erdenesanaa


THE CRISES OF HEAT AND SMOKE SHARE A COMMON THREAD: CLIMATE CHANGE.


SMOKE FORECAST

Light
Medium
Heavy
© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap Improve this map
 * X
 * +
 * -

9 p.m. Thursday
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Notes: Data is as of 5
p.m. Eastern on June 29. Forecast is based on models and may underestimate smoke
because of cloud cover or other obstructions. Contours show estimates of
wildfire smoke near the surface. By Madison Dong and Bea Malsky


Follow our live coverage as brutal heat and humidity engulfs the U.S.

Between the dangerous heat baking Texas and the Southeast, and the wildfire
smoke filling the skies throughout the Upper Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic,
people across a huge part of the United States have been seeking relief from the
outside world in recent days.

The two threats this week aren’t connected directly. But a common factor is
adding to their capacity to cause misery.

Human-caused climate change is turning high temperatures that would once have
been considered improbable into more commonplace occurrences. And it is
intensifying the heat and dryness that fuel catastrophic wildfires, allowing
them to burn longer and more ferociously, and to churn out more smoke.

Climate change is “the elephant in the room” that is worsening wildfires and
their effects on air quality, said John C. Lin, a professor of atmospheric
science at the University of Utah. As this year’s Canadian blazes have shown,
climate-related disasters are becoming international affairs, not just local or
regional ones, Dr. Lin said.

The weather has always been a combination of mild norms and occasional extremes,
but the burning of fossil fuels is loading the dice in favor of weather on the
warmer end. On Wednesday afternoon, more than 50 million Americans were living
under heat advisories from the National Weather Service.



In Texas, apart from the daily temperature records that parts of the state have
set this month, John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist, said he had
also been looking at the places that have broken records for their hottest
weeks.

Almost all of Southern and Western Texas’ hottest seven-day periods have
occurred in the past few decades, he said, a sign of how global warming is
making heat waves like those that are familiar to Texans in summertime hotter
than they would be otherwise.

“While the skeptics like to point to the all-time individual maximum temperature
records not having been set recently, any other temperature metric you look at
is showing prominent increases, which includes persistent heat in the case of
Texas,” said Dr. Nielsen-Gammon, who is also a professor of atmospheric science
at Texas A&M University.


HEAT INDEX FORECAST FOR WEDNESDAY

Data as of June 28, 2023, 8:44 a.m. Eastern. See more detailed maps and charts ›
Caution Feels like 80°-90°
Extreme caution 90°-103°
Danger 103°-125°
Fla.
Ga.
S.C.
N.C.
Va.
W.Va.
Md.
Del.
Pa.
N.J.
N.Y.
Mass.
Conn.
Maine
N.H.
Vt.
Ala.
Miss.
La.
Ark.
Texas
N.M.
Ariz.
Calif.
Ore.
Wash.
Idaho
Nev.
Utah
Colo.
Wyo.
Mont.
N.D.
S.D.
Neb.
Kan.
Okla.
Minn.
Iowa.
Mo.
Wis.
Ill.
Ind.
Ohio
Mich.
Ky.
Tenn.

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration•The New York Times



On Wednesday, President Biden delivered a speech in Chicago, which was shrouded
in a soupy haze from the Canadian wildfires.

“This is part of a growing pattern of extreme weather events that we’re seeing
as a result of climate change,” said Olivia Dalton, the deputy White House press
secretary, “and why the president has taken such ambitious, aggressive action to
tackle that threat.”

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has also blamed human-driven warming
for increases in wildfire spread and intensity. “Year after year, with climate
change, we’re seeing more and more intense wildfires — and they’re starting to
happen in places where they don’t normally,” he wrote on Twitter this month,
shortly before cough-inducing smoke from Canada began smothering a large section
of the northeastern United States.

That encounter with smoke and haze is what first drew many Americans’ attention
to the fires across their northern border. But parts of Canada have continued to
grapple with burning forests even if, for a time, less of their smoke was
blowing in Americans’ direction. Nearly half of the 480 fires that were raging
across Canada on Wednesday afternoon were classified as uncontrolled, according
to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center.

Higher air temperatures add to the drying out of dead leaves, branches and other
flammable matter that feeds forest fires, said Jeff Wen, a doctoral candidate in
earth-system science at Stanford University who studies the societal effects of
wildfire smoke. “Those drier surface fuels, once ignited, burn more intensely
and more severely, really damaging ecosystems,” he said.

Already this year, carbon emissions from fires in Canada have surpassed those
that fires in the country have produced in any of the past 20 years, according
to the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. The smoke is
not just drifting into the United States. It has also been making its way across
the Atlantic, reaching southern Europe and the British Isles before curling
toward the north and east, the monitoring service said.

Even before this year, Canada had been seeing an increase, over the decades, in
the area burned by wildfires, said Chelene C. Hanes, a fire scientist with the
Canadian Forest Service. “The fire season is getting longer, starting earlier in
the spring, going later into the fall,” she said. And, “we’re getting more of
these larger fires.”

Dr. Hanes was one of two lead authors on a study, published in 2019, that
described these changes from 1959 to 2015. She said she hoped to update the
findings soon with information about how the relentless wildfire seasons of
recent years had affected longer-term trends.

“Because it’s happening so fast,” she said. “It just seems the pace of things
changing is so quick.”

Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.


Show more


ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading the main story


June 8, 2023, 11:00 p.m. ETJune 8, 2023
June 8, 2023

Dani Blum


HOW WORRIED SHOULD YOU BE ABOUT WILDFIRE SMOKE EXPOSURE?

Image

Adults without pre-existing conditions will likely recover from the effects of
short-term exposure to wildfire smoke, Dr. Brook said.Credit...Benjamin Norman
for The New York Times


A lot is still unknown about the toll wildfire smoke takes on your health. But
most adults and children without pre-existing conditions will likely recover
quickly from the effects of short-term exposure to the smoke passing over the
United States, said Jeffrey Brook, an associate professor of occupational and
environmental health at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public
Health.

The smoke that people have encountered this week is one of many exposures to
pollution our bodies will take in over time, he said — it’s not likely that
we’ll be able to identify a health problem in the future and definitively pin it
on a few days of wildfire smoke.

“The brevity of this exposure for this period of time shouldn’t have significant
long-term effects for the general population,” said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a
pulmonary and critical care medicine physician at Johns Hopkins Medicine. But
there’s limited data on how to assess the health effects from a “onetime big
burst of smoke,” said Mary Prunicki, director of air pollution and health
research at the Sean N. Parker Center for Asthma and Allergy Research at
Stanford Medicine.

“What happens to the person that doesn’t have any outward symptoms from this
brief exposure? Probably there are changes in their bloodstream, but maybe
that’s transitory. We don’t actually know,” she said. “If they have no
significant impacts acutely from the smoke, probably they’re going to not have
long-term impacts. But research hasn’t actually shown that either way.”

Isolating the long-term effects of wildfire smoke in general is difficult — it’s
tricky to determine how exposure to smoke can impact cognitive performance years
later or other consequences, said Laura Corlin, an assistant professor at Tufts
University School of Medicine. And we also don’t know the exact threshold for
just how much exposure is likely to have a long-term impact, said Dr. Raj
Fadadu, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco School of
Medicine who has studied the health effects of wildfire smoke.

What we do know is that even minutes of exposure to wildfire smoke can trigger
inflammation in the body, said Dr. Brook. Inflammation can lead to a cascade of
downstream health effects; the longer it persists, the more it raises the risk
for cardiovascular issues and strokes. A few days or a week of enhanced
inflammation is most likely not enough to lead to detectable health problems in
the future, he said. “But inflammation is inflammation, and it is bad.”

We also know that wildfire smoke is particularly dangerous for people with
underlying lung or heart conditions. Smoke can exacerbate symptoms of asthma and
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It can put babies, children, older people
and pregnant women at risk of severe health effects. Smoke also poses
significant risk to fetuses. For otherwise healthy people without pre-existing
conditions, even brief exposure to wildfire smoke can lead to stinging eyes,
irritated sinuses, wheezing, shortness of breath, headaches, itchy skin and
coughing.

If you go outside, wear a tightfitting mask like an N95, and pay extra attention
to your body for the next hour or so that follows, said Dr. Emily Pennington, a
pulmonologist at the Cleveland Clinic — watch out for symptoms like intense
coughing and chest tightness. If you are struggling to breathe or experiencing
chest pain, seek medical attention. Continue to monitor your health over the
next few days, and make sure you’re staying hydrated and getting enough sleep,
which might help you feel better, advised Dr. Corlin. And take whatever
precautions you can to minimize your level of exposure — namely, staying inside
as much as possible.

Show more
 * Give this articleShare full article
 * 
 * 





SITE INDEX




SITE INFORMATION NAVIGATION

 * © 2023 The New York Times Company

 * NYTCo
 * Contact Us
 * Accessibility
 * Work with us
 * Advertise
 * T Brand Studio
 * Your Ad Choices
 * Privacy Policy
 * Terms of Service
 * Terms of Sale
 * Site Map
 * Canada
 * International
 * Help
 * Subscriptions



Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Times.

See subscription options