Category: Canada

Officials warn that the dangerously smoky conditions are expected to persist into the weekend…reports Asian Lite News

Millions of people in North America have been advised to wear N95 masks outdoors due to poor air quality levels sparked by intense wildfires in Canada.

New York will begin distributing free masks on Thursday. Canada has said that people should wear a mask if they are unable to remain indoors.

Officials warn that the dangerously smoky conditions are expected to persist into the weekend. Much of the smoke is coming from Quebec, where 150 fires are burning.

More than 15,000 residents are expected to be forced to evacuate in the province, officials said on Wednesday. It is already Quebec’s worst fire season on record.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Wednesday that New York would distribute one million masks to state residents on Thursday.

“This is a temporary situation. This is not Covid,” she said at a news conference. The governor added that New York City buses and trains have high-quality air filtration systems that make them safe forms of travel.

Environment Canada has said that conditions are worsening in Toronto on Thursday, as more smoke pours in. In a special weather bulletin on Wednesday, the agency recommended that anyone outdoors wear a mask.

“These fine particles generally pose the greatest risk to health. However, respirators do not reduce exposure to the gases in wildfire smoke,” the Environment Canada statement said.

Meanwhile, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified the air quality in much of the north-east as “unhealthy” especially for people with respiratory concerns.

In total, millions of people around North America are thought to be under a form of air quality warning.

In New York, an orange haze blanketed the city’s skyline and shrouded landmarks including the Statue of Liberty.

“We recommend all New Yorkers limit outdoor activity to the greatest extent possible,” Mayor Eric Adams warned on Wednesday.

Zoos have brought animals indoors, and in New York, carriage horse rides have been suspended. On Wednesday, schools in the Washington DC area also cancelled outdoor activities as air quality levels were labelled “code red”, while Detroit was listed as the fifth worst major metropolitan area in the world on IQAir’s air pollution rankings.

Public health officials have cautioned people not to exercise outside and to minimise their exposure to the smoke as much as possible, as the air poses immediate and long-term health risks.

Canadian officials say the country is shaping up for its worst wildfire season on record.

Experts have pointed to a warmer and drier spring than normal as the reason behind the trend. These conditions are projected to continue throughout the summer. Fires across Canada have already burned more than 3.8m hectares (9.4m acres) of land – an area 12 times the 10-year average for this time of year.

More than 600 US firefighters have been sent to Canada to assist local officials, the White House announced on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a phone call to discuss the current situation.

The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began, and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

Experts say exposure to wildfire smoke can cause a litany of health issues. Matthew Adams, a professor at the University of Toronto and the director of its Centre of Urban Environments, said immediate effects of inhaling wildfire smoke include shortness of breath, an elevated pulse, chest pain, or inflammation in the eyes, nose and throat.

“On these elevated air pollution days, we’ll see an increased number of visits to hospital,” Prof Adams said. “And the people that are visiting the hospital typically have a pre-existing respiratory disease.”

But wildfire smoke has also been linked to serious, long-term health issues like cancer or lung disease, Prof Adams said, specifically for people who live in areas that experience frequent forest fires. This is caused by small particles in the smoke haze, he said, which can enter the bloodstream and other parts of the human body, causing possible DNA mutations and other health issues.

Some studies have also shown that prolonged wildfire smoke exposure can affect pregnant women and their unborn children, Prof Adams added. For people living in cities far away from the fires but under current air advisories, Prof Adams advised people limit outdoor exercise to avoid breathing in the wildfire smoke. “Don’t get so concerned about it,” he said. “Stay inside and reduce your exposure.”

But in areas closer to the fires, Prof Adams recommended wearing an N95 mask outside to block inhalation of most of the smoke particles.

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As wildfires raged in western Quebec and northern Ontario near Ottawa, the air quality of the Canadian capital city was so bad that it cracked through the top of a risk scale….reports Asian Lite News

Smoke from Canada’s wildfires has engulfed a wide swath of the northern US, triggering air alerts from Minnesota to Massachusetts.

In Ontario, a layer of haze blanketed parts of Ottawa and Toronto, where Canadian officials warned residents about the poor air quality, as smoke floated over portions of New York State and Vermont. All of New York City was under an air quality alert on Tuesday because of the smoke; by the afternoon, the Manhattan skyline was obscured by hazy skies.

More than 400 active wildfires were burning in Canada on Tuesday, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, exacerbating an already active wildfire season that is only expected to worsen. More than 200 of the fires were burning out of control, the agency said.

In eastern Canada, Quebec was most affected by wildfires as of early Tuesday afternoon, with more than 150 active blazes across the area, according to the fire agency. Residents in some areas were being encouraged to shut their windows and doors, local officials in Quebec said.

As wildfires raged in western Quebec and northern Ontario near Ottawa, the air quality of the Canadian capital city was so bad that it cracked through the top of a risk scale.

Environment Canada warned that forest fires may keep the air dangerous to human health through most of the week.

Ottawa was officially at a 10+ on Environment Canada’s Air Quality Health Index Tuesday morning, which is its highest level and the highest among the country’s major cities.

This meant the general public should reduce or reschedule strenuous outdoor activities, and people at risk of serious health problems from pollution, including seniors, young children and pregnant people, should avoid these types of activities.

By early afternoon, it settled down to 10, which was still high.

Monica Vaswani, warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the air quality index maxes out at 10 for forecasting purposes.

But Ottawa’s readings actually hit as high as 14 on an internal scale on Tuesday, double what the ministry requires for issuing an air quality statement.

“That just gives you an idea that it is definitely, in some ways, off the charts,” she said.

“Don’t expect a return to normal anytime soon,” Vaswani said, adding that winds from the north and northeast will keep pushing plumes of smoke from Quebec toward Ottawa.

There’s also little sign of significant rainfall over the workweek or longer and the forest fires might actually prevent rain from forming, she noted.

“Unless the forest fires themselves reduce in some fashion, the weather is not going to change really,” she said. “So more likely than not the air quality is going to remain … bad.”

Environment Canada still has smog warnings for areas north and east of Gatineau and special air quality statements for the rest of eastern Ontario and western Quebec.

Vaswani said the poor air quality in Ottawa is driven by high levels of fine particulate matter in the air from the forest fires.

As of Tuesday at 8 a.m., Ontario’s Ministry of Environment, Concentration and Parks was reporting levels of that pollutant well in excess of healthy levels. Concentrations of fine particulate matter were 267 micrograms per cubic metre.

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