http://www.wsj.com/articles/wildfire-air-quality-health-effects-smoke-us-canada-f9a2c7d4

When Will Air Quality Improve and What to Know About Your Health and Safety

Millions of Americans are under air-quality alerts as smoke wafts southward

By Aylin Woodward

Updated June 7, 2023 6:11 pm ET

Smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning in Canada poses health risks to millions of Americans, especially those with underlying conditions in affected regions.

“We’re experiencing a pretty serious health threat from air pollution across really a wide swath of the U.S.,” said Paul Billings, national senior vice president of public policy at the American Lung Association. “I think the important thing for people to do during this crisis is to take extra care to protect themselves.”

New York City, which has been shrouded in haze since Tuesday, currently ranks among some of the worst cities in the world for air quality, according to data from the state department of environmental conservation. Several U.S. meteorologists said the weather and wind pattern responsible for pushing the wildfire smoke south from Canada is unlikely to change for the next several days.

A wildfire burning near Barrington Lake in Canada’s Nova Scotia province. PHOTO: HANDOUT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Here’s what to know about the health effects of poor air quality.

Why is air quality so bad right now in the U.S.?

Wildfire smoke contains particulate-matter pollutants that are just 2.5 micrometers in diameter—smaller than the size of a human hair. These tiny particles can lower air quality, and when inhaled can get into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. 

A satellite image of smoke from wildfires in Quebec, Canada, drifting southward this week. PHOTO: CIRA/NOAA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“They get past the body’s natural defenses,” Billings said. “Larger particles can get trapped in the nose and the mucus, and you can expel them and cough them out, but those smaller particles penetrate deep in the lungs.”

Such particulate matter has been linked to a number of health problems in the lungs, according to AirNow, a U.S. government entity that monitors air quality.

As of Wednesday, the Weather Service had issued air-quality alerts for more than a dozen states, including New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts. Some health experts recommend people check air quality in their area using AirNow.

What are the health risks associated with exposure to smoke from wildfires?

Short-term exposure—a timeline of days to weeks—is associated with increased risk of exacerbating pre-existing respiratory conditions like asthma, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Such exposure can also lead to coughing and difficulty breathing, as well as reduced lung function, heart attack, stroke and increased risk of emergency-room visits and hospital admissions, the EPA said.

Environmental health researchers have documented increased rates of asthma attacks and heart attacks after exposure to wildfire smoke over a few days, said Joel Schwartz, an epidemiologist studying air pollutants at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. 

Researchers have also seen an uptick in hospitalizations for pneumonia after such events, as particulate matter decreases the lungs’ ability to fight off an existing infection, animal studies have shown, Schwartz said. 

Though it is a modest increase in rates of cases, the reach of the smoke event can have a big impact. “If you’re exposing 50 million people in the Northeast, modest changes in the probability of an event can still end up with a significant number,” Schwartz said. “More people die.” 

What is the air quality index and what is a healthy amount?

The Air Quality Index used in the U.S. helps determine which groups of people should be concerned when poor air quality is detected. The index, which is on a scale of 0 to 500, offers recommendations for those groups using a six color-coded system. Good air quality, or green, is between 0 and 50 on that index. 

As of Wednesday 2 p.m. local time, the New York City metro area entered the purple, or “very unhealthy” category above 235 on the index, which indicates people in sensitive groups, including individuals with heart or lung disease, should avoid all physical activity outdoors and move activities indoors or reschedule them. Everyone else is recommended to avoid prolonged or heavy exertion and consider moving activities indoors or rescheduling. 

The permanent health impacts of an air pollution episode like this depend on how long it lasts, according to Jack Caravanos, a clinical professor at the New York University School of Global Public Health. “Right now we’re on day two or three. If it lasts another week or so, there may be some cumulative damage, especially for older people,” he said.

Right now, healthy 20- to 30-year-olds should see really minimal long-term damage, hopefully no damage at all, he added.

U.S. CITIES CHOKED IN SMOKE FROM CANADIAN WILDFIRES

What can I do to protect myself from the health risks of smoke exposure?

Limiting your exposure to smoke and staying indoors is highly advisable, and people should keep their windows and doors closed, according to Billings.

“The more smoke you breathe, the more pollution you’re breathing in and that can lead to more adverse impacts,” he said.

The EPA suggests choosing a clean room where the doors and windows can remain closed for long periods of time. It is a good place to put an air filter if you have one. 

Those with window air conditioners should check that their units are recirculating air from indoors rather than pulling air from outside. 

The haze descending Wednesday on the East River in New York City. PHOTO: ALYSSA GOODMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Should I buy an air purifier or wear a mask?

Billings recommends working to create a clean room using an air purifier with high efficiency particulate air, or HEPA, filter, particularly for people with lung disease or for those starting to have symptoms like coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath. People who feel ill should contact a healthcare provider and go to the emergency room if needed, he added.

Billings also recommended people wear N95 or KN95 masks, which can help reduce the number of particles that you inhale.

Can I exercise outdoors right now?

Health experts generally advise against exercising outdoors once the AQI exceeds 150. Indoor exercise is normally fine, so long as the room in which you’re exercising has good air filtration. For people without high-risk health conditions, limited, short-term exposure to polluted air is unlikely to cause long-term problems but it will probably still be uncomfortable, health experts say. 

“If you’re a normal runner and you run three miles every morning in Central Park, you can probably make this run and you’ll have short-term health effects like coughing and itching and burning eyes,” says Rich Branson, respiratory therapist and professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. 

Heavy exertion over long periods is likely to produce the worst symptoms, so those who don’t have the option of staying indoors should try to limit one or the other, doctors say. People walking outdoors should give themselves extra time to get between locations to avoid heavier breathing that can introduce more pollutants into the air sacs in the lungs that can get into the bloodstream, said Dr. Alex McDonald, a family and sports medicine physician in Southern California.

Washington, D.C., is among the major cities in the eastern U.S. that have canceled some outdoor activies due to the smoke. PHOTO: SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Why is the smoke from Canada coming into the U.S.?

More than 400 fires are currently burning across Canada in what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called an “unprecedented” wildfire season in a Monday press conference. A large chunk of those active blazes—more than 150—are in Quebec, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

Meteorologists said that north-to-northwesterly winds are transporting the smoke from Quebec south into New York, parts of New England, the Midwest and the northeastern U.S.

A pattern of low pressure sitting above parts of Nova Scotia, Maine and Atlantic Canada has been driving the direction of those winds for the past two days.

“That low pressure is not moving too much, it’s what’s called a blocked pattern in the atmosphere,” said Jase Bernhardt, a meteorologist and professor at Hofstra University. “And sort of the outcome of that is that there’s a fairly consistent wind that’s generally from a northerly direction.”

“It’s just bad luck,” said Darren Austin, a state meteorologist for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management . “If the winds were southerly, this would all be going up toward the Arctic Circle.” The proximity of the Quebec blazes to the U.S. has exacerbated their impacts, he added. “When a fire is closer, the smoke has less chance to get higher up in the atmosphere and mix out, so it’s closer to the ground.”

​​When will air quality improve?

The wind doesn’t appear to be shifting in a favorable direction over the next day or two, officials said during a Wednesday press briefing by the New York State Department of Health and Department of Environmental Conservation.

“We’re really going to be in this pattern here over the next several days,” said Nelson Vaz, a warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in New York, adding that it doesn’t look like a shift in the low-pressure area that’s driving the unfavorable winds will happen until the weekend or into early next week.

Bernhardt said that once that low-pressure area starts to weaken, the associated wind pattern will flip, and allow smoke to get pushed away from the U.S., which may improve air quality.

What is the Canadian government doing to address the issue of bad air quality?

The conditions that caused this wildfire crisis are hard to prevent, Caravanos said. “The weather has been very dry with very little rain, temperatures have been elevated—one little spark from lightning, and you see what happened. And now it’s sort of out of control.”

Trudeau said Monday the government was giving federal assistance to Alberta, Nova Scotia and Quebec as more than 20,000 Canadians had to evacuate from their homes.

Improving forest management in some of the more remote parts of Canada may be a takeaway lesson from all this, Caravanos said. “Dealing with air pollution is a fickle beast, because it’s transboundary,” he added. 

Trudeau said Monday he expected Canada would have enough resources to fight the fires through summer.

Nidhi Subbaraman and Alex Janin contributed to this article.

This article may be periodically updated.

Write to Aylin Woodward at aylin.woodward@wsj.com

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/06/northeast-wildfire-smoke-canada-pollution/ [DO click thru to see the maps, diagrams, tweets, and other graphics that simply don’t work here]

Where wildfire smoke is hitting the U.S. the hardest — and when it will end

The smoke, emanating from Canada, is causing gray skies and poor air quality 

By Matthew Cappucci

Published June 6, 2023 at 1:10 p.m. EDT, Updated June 6, 2023 at 3:09 p.m. EDT

Canadian wildfire smoke veils New York

On June 6, smoke from Canadian wildfires hung over New York, prompting concerns about air quality. (Video: Rob McDonagh via Storyful)

The smoky scenes and threat of fast-moving fires — so common in California during recent summers — are now paying the eastern United States an unwelcome, improbable and toxic visit.

A thick veil of Canadian wildfire smoke is spreading south over much of the Midwest, Ohio Valley, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, bringing milky-white skies and dangerous air pollution to the most populous corridor of the country. Fine particles contained within the smoke, hazardous to breathe, have prompted air quality alerts for tens of millions of people from Baltimore to Boston to Burlington, but measurements show bad air affecting even a larger area that includes Minneapolis and Washington, D.C.

Smoke invaded the D.C. area yet again Tuesday and could get worse

In some places, air quality measurements are the worst on record. Marshall Burke, a professor of environment at Stanford University, tweeted that this event is the “[n]ear worst or worst event” in the last two decades or so, based on smoke particle data.

As of Tuesday afternoon, New York City and Toronto were ranked among the seven cities with the worst air quality in the world.

The exceptionally unusual smoke episode could be made worse as there is a heightened threat for new fires both in the Great Lakes and the Northeast. The risk is “critical” in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, according to the National Weather Service, where dry thunderstorms, which contain little rain, could release pinpoint lightning strikes that ignite new blazes over the parched area.

It’s the first time forecasters can recall a dry thunderstorm threat arising in this area. Elizabeth Leitman, a forecaster at the Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., tweeted: “None of us can recall it ever happening and are fairly confident this is a first.”

The Weather Service is also cautioning that fires could erupt across Michigan, prompting red-flag warnings there. “Any fires that develop may quickly get out of control and become difficult to contain,” the Weather Service warned.

Midwest, Northeast face unusual summer fire threat as drought expands

While there is a threat of new blazes erupting in parts of the northeastern United States, the source of much of the smoke pouring into the region is Quebec, Canada. Most broke out in the past week. Across Canada, there are 416 active fires, 240 of which the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center lists as “out of control.”

The wildfires cropped up beneath a well-predicted “heat dome,” or zone of high pressure, which brought sinking air and warm, dry conditions that broke records for the time of year and location.

Low pressure swirling clockwise over Nova Scotia, meanwhile, is making for a conveyor belt of northerly winds that is pumping the smoke south over the Great Lakes, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

Where is the smoke and where is it worst?

Satellite imagery Tuesday afternoon showed a massive shield of thick smoke wafting south from near Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay all the way to the Carolinas. Even the southern Appalachians were seeing some smoke. The thickest extended from Lake Erie to near New York City. A second zone of extremely poor air quality was present between Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

That said, poor air quality reached as far west as Minnesota, according to AirNow.gov, and a few hints of smoke were even flirting with the Georgia-Florida border.

Environmental agencies have also plastered air quality alerts across an expansive swath of the Northeast, cautioning that “sensitive individuals, including those with heart or lung disease, the elderly, and the young should limit strenuous activities and the amount of time active outdoors.”

The code-orange air quality alerts, meaning air quality is hazardous for vulnerable groups, cover Philadelphia, New York City, most of the Delmarva Peninsula, the majority of New York, all of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and Massachusetts, and most of New Hampshire.

Wildfire smoke again hits the East Coast. How bad is it for your health?

On Tuesday morning, the worst air quality was concentrated in western New York into Quebec and Ontario, where code-orange and purple conditions were prevalent. They mean air quality is hazardous for all populations.

Jase Bernhardt, a professor of meteorology at Hofstra University, determined that the Air Quality Index in Syracuse, N.Y., was the worst since reliable records began in 1999.

Particle pollution in Detroit and New York registered at the highest and second highest level since 2006, Stanford’s Burke found.

Meanwhile, forecasters at the Weather Service in Burlington, Vt., called the smoke situation “uncharted territory,” having never dealt with it before. “[W]e are learning and adapting as the event unfolds,” they wrote in a discussion.

How long will it last?

With no end in sight to the fires, the question of how long the smoke sticks around comes down to wind direction. Michigan, Indiana and Ohio should see improvement into Tuesday night, but Pennsylvania, the Virginias, Tennessee and the Carolinas will probably see smoke stick around.

Then on Wednesday into Thursday, an even worse round of wildfire smoke could waft south out of Canada on the backside of a north-to-south-moving cold front. Pennsylvania, New York state and the Mid-Atlantic — including major metro areas such as Philadelphia, Newark, New York, Baltimore, Washington and Richmond — are likely to see very poor air quality. Outdoor recreation would probably be hazardous.

Winds will become more northwesterly Friday into Saturday. While that won’t fully clear the smoke, it will bring a reduction in the concentrations of fine particulate matter. Visibilities, sky conditions and air quality will improve somewhat.

Very unusual. Wildfires are normal to an extent across Canada and the western United States in the summertime, but outbreaks as widespread and numerous as these are virtually unheard of in late May into June. The amount of smoke pouring into the Northeast is thus also exceptional.

More than 3.7 million acres are believed to have already been torched in Canada.

The Canadian Broadcast Corp. published a sobering graph comparing area burned thus far this year with prior years:

While wildfires can be sparked in many different ways, the rapidity with which they spread is proportional to how hot and dry the ambient environment is. There exists a strong link between the frequency and intensity of heat domes and human-caused climate change. A number of high-end heat domes have already fostered wildfire outbreaks across Canada this year, and more appear to be in the offing.

‘Unprecedented’ Canadian fires intensified by record heat, climate change

Jason Samenow contributed to this report.

By Matthew CappucciMatthew Cappucci is a meteorologist for Capital Weather Gang. He earned a B.A. in atmospheric sciences from Harvard University in 2019, and has contributed to The Washington Post since he was 18. He is an avid storm chaser and adventurer, and covers all types of weather, climate science, and astronomy.