Millions of North Americans remained under air quality warnings on Friday, even as smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires began to dissipate in the north-eastern US.
Moderate to unhealthy air quality continued to linger across a swath of the US and Canada, from the midwest to the Atlantic coast, the US National Weather Service said, although it said “some improvement” will continue this weekend.
A favorable shift in weather brought temporary reprieve from Canadian wildfires, but experts caution that decades of changes to the climate – and human actions in the forest – have primed the country’s forests to keep burning.
As of Friday, 421 fires were burning, down from 441 on Wednesday, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The number of fires deemed out of control also dropped from 256 on Wednesday to 230, aided by rains that hit areas of Quebec.
More than 43,000 sq km have burned so far this year, making 2023 the second-worst year for fires on record – a milestone from 2014 probably eclipsed this weekend.
The impact has been felt across North America.
On Thursday night the Biden administration postponed a planned LGBTQ+ event at the White House, while public schools in New York City and Philadelphia implemented remote learning on Friday. Smoke affected the air quality as far south as North Carolina, while fires still blazed, many out of control, across swaths of Canada.
“Smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to be transported south by winds into the US resulting in moderate to unhealthy air quality across parts of the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley, and Midwest on Friday,” the National Weather Service said.
“Near-surface wildfire smoke associated with Canadian fires is expected to continue plaguing regions from the Great Lakes to the Mid-Atlantic with reduced air quality.
“Northwesterly flow around a low pressure system over the Northeast will continue the flow of smoke over the region, but should relax and eventually shift to more of a westerly direction on Saturday.”
All of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Indiana are under air quality alerts, CNN reported, while parts of Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina were under alerts.
New York City, which at points on Wednesday and Thursday had the worst air quality of any major city in the world, saw improved conditions on Friday morning, with an air quality index of 68, according to AirNow, a government website. That put the city at a “moderate” rating, according to Air Now; at points this week New York topped 400 on the air quality index, meaning the air was classed as “hazardous”.
In Philadelphia, garbage pickups and street maintenance were suspended to protect workers from the polluted air, while Connecticut officials in Bridgeport activated the city’s cooling centers protocol – normally used only on the hottest days – so residents could escape the unhealthy air at designated library branches and senior centers.
Joe Biden postponed a Pride month celebration with thousands of guests on the White House lawn because of poor air quality in Washington on Thursday. The event will instead be held on Saturday. The event is intended as a high-profile show of support for LGBTQ+ people at a time when the community is under attack from Republican-run state legislatures across the country.
It remains unclear when more than 12,000 Canadians displaced by encroaching flames will be able to return home, the Quebec public security minister, François Bonnardel, said, according to the Associated Press.
More than 639,000 hectares (2,467 sq miles) have burned in the province, representing the worst fire season in Quebec on record.
Hundreds of firefighters from across the world have flown to Canada, and hopes are rising that rains will fall in some areas.
Quebec’s forestry minister, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, said: “This sprint phase is over – now we’re in a marathon phase. So in the next days and weeks we will be working to contain those active fires to bring them under control and eventually extinguish them,” she told a briefing.
But officials in western Canada have watched with frustration and helplessness as the Donnie Creek fire in British Columbia continues to grow. As of Thursday afternoon, it measured 344,725 hectares in size, and officials have acknowledged that it is likely to burn into the autumn.
“It wouldn’t be going out on a limb to say that this has been one of the most challenging wildfire seasons to date … 20,000 hectares is our 10-year average and we’re at just over half a million hectares burned so far this spring,” said Cliff Chapman of the BC Wildfire Service.
