Massive Canadian Wildfires Send Dangerous Smoke To US
It happened in June 2023. Huge amounts of smoke from wildfires far north in eastern Canada choked the residents of New York City and then spread as far south as Washington and as far west as Minneapolis. It is happening again as wildfires in Western Canada send smoke toward the upper Midwest.
The latest Canadian wildfires are centered around the small town of Flin Flon. It is located in Manitoba, which has declared a state of emergency. According to The Washington Post, “Northern Minnesota is at the highest risk for poor air quality Thursday, before a more expansive smoke plume moves southward Friday — with Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit all potentially seeing a reduction in air quality and/or visibility in the afternoon and evening.” A forecast map shows the smoke moving across Chicago and then south into Indiana.
The health effects are not trivial. The National Library of Medicine posted a research paper titled “Canadian Wildfire Smoke and Asthma Syndrome Emergency Department Visits in New York City.” Its authors wrote, “Despite being located hundreds of kilometers away, the Canadian wildfires were associated with increased asthma syndrome ED visits in NYC during the June 2023 smoke wave. This association was acute (highest in the second day of the smoke wave) and affected individuals aged 5 to 64 years and all boroughs.”
Health Problems Are Not Minor
These health problems are not minor. They added to emergency room visits. Some people suffered health conditions that persisted for weeks, if not months. The problem was great enough that the Yale School of Public Health reported, “People should take precautions for wildfire-induced air quality alerts seriously. This means altering your daily routines as you would do for other extreme events like hurricanes.”
The conditions that create wildfires in northern Canada are no different than those in America’s western states. That means these will be permanent parts of the health risks in the northern tier of the US.
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