The Big Apple burns: New York City wildfire Smoke Moves Upstate And Into Connecticut

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One byproduct of wildfires is smoke, which is often dangerous. California wildfire smoke after drifting into Montana. Canadian wildfire smoke moved south to Washington, DC, last year and as far west as Minneapolis. The air quality in NYC turned dangerous, and some city residents with pre-existing conditions had to be moved indoors.

*Smoke Damage

*Smoke Deaths Hit 12,000

*Montana Fires Spread

One notable aspect of smoke is that it is hard to assess financial damages. Much of it is to human health, and the effects may be long-term. It does not help in an analysis of local or regional cases. However, one study does give a figure worldwide. “A World Bank report estimated that the cost of the health damage caused by air pollution amounts to $8.1 trillion a year, equivalent to 6.1% of global GDP.”

Today, smoke comes from New York City, particularly fires in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. It has moved as far north as Poughkeepsie, New York, and east as Danbury, Connecticut. In neither case is this a health emergency, but it is an example that what was once primarily a West Coast problem isn’t anymore. Climate change makes areas of the world that were once considered climate-safe not climate-safe anymore.

New York has had no rain for 40 days, which is a record.

The northeast drought also covers much of Connecticut and parts of Massachusetts. Connecticut has had over 100 brush fires and is bone dry. The fire risk in all geographic areas will rise until rain arrives; none is in the short-term forecast.

Connecticut Fires

The northeast is not prepared for wildfires. There have been few large ones there in decades. This means that equipment or a trained fire crew is needed, unlike the areas in California, where there has been drought off and on for centuries. The need for them could grow.

Climate change continues to change the risk map, not just in the US but worldwide, and doubt and floods seem to move into areas where it was once considered impossible for climate problems to exist.