{"id":556325,"date":"2026-07-18T17:19:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/556325\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T17:19:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:19:28","slug":"profound-resigned-hopelessness-people-across-us-and-canada-share-effects-of-wildfire-smoke-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/556325\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Profound, resigned hopelessness\u2019: people across US and Canada share effects of wildfire smoke | Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

As smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires continues to spread across large parts of North America, bringing hazardous air to tens of millions of people<\/a>, outdoor activities are being canceled, businesses disrupted and vulnerable residents are being kept indoors as officials warn the unhealthy conditions will likely persist.<\/p>\n

Air quality alerts were issued across more than 20 US states<\/a> as smoke from wildfires burning in south-central Canada, northern Ontario and parts of Minnesota drifted south. About 109 million Americans across the midwest, mid-Atlantic and north-east experienced unhealthy air this week.<\/p>\n

For many Canadians, however, the smoke has become an increasingly familiar part of summer. With hundreds of fires still burning in Canada<\/a>, forecasters warned smoke could continue affecting communities on both sides of the border in the coming days.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of the coverage focuses on the US, but multimillions of Canadians are faring as badly or worse,\u201d said Tenille Bonoguore, who lives in Waterloo, Ontario. \u201cIn a country where we get through winter by anticipating summer, we are locked indoors gazing at hazy streets visibly full of smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonoguore said families are increasingly being faced with a dangerous decision; the choice between keeping windows open during hot weather or closing them to keep smoke out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose without air conditioning have the battle of choosing between dealing with heat or smoke,\u201d she said. \u201cFor many of us, this is the second or third or fourth summer facing these conditions that were nowhere near normal even just a decade ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The smoke is coming from more than 180 active wildfires<\/a> burning across northern Ontario, part of another intense Canadian wildfire season that has repeatedly sent smoke across the international border.<\/p>\n

The deteriorating conditions have also hit workers whose jobs cannot simply move indoors. In Hamilton, Ontario, self-employed carpenter Ted Brearley said the smoke has forced him to reduce work hours and send employees home.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy business has experienced a huge loss in production,\u201d Brearley said. \u201cSending staff home early and then losing hours and pay as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

He questioned whether governments have invested enough in wildfire response.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith wildfires getting worse and worse, year after year, why is our government not stepping up to the plate?\u201d he said. \u201cFreebies don\u2019t help when I can\u2019t breathe, can\u2019t work, or can\u2019t feed my family or keep a roof over my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

South of the border, residents who made even brief trips outside described air conditions as noxious. Chicago recorded the world\u2019s worst air quality<\/a> on Thursday evening, according to IQAir\u2019s global rankings, with Detroit and Minneapolis also ranking among the most polluted cities.<\/p>\n

In Skokie, Illinois<\/a>, 26-year-old student Zeff said the smoke carried a pungent chemical smell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe air stinks of burnt plastic, like it\u2019s been poisoned,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to take a deep breath without my nose and throat burning.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the ominous haze has settled over neighborhoods throughout the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a mirage hanging on the treetops, white fog blanketing everything in the distance,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody I speak to voices a profound, resigned hopelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vlad, a data engineer who has lived in Chicago<\/a> for two decades, said he had never experienced conditions this severe. Concerned about his son, who has asthma, Vlad said he has kept him indoors and plans to replace his home\u2019s HVAC filter and buy an indoor air quality monitor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the worst it\u2019s been in Chicago since I moved here 20 years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you go outside, you can taste the air, and it tastes toxic. My body is actively trying to tell me this is not good to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As the smoke spread farther east, communities began altering daily routines to limit outdoor exposure. The smoke had stretched into New York, where orange skies and the smell of smoke lingered<\/a> over the city.<\/p>\n

In Farmington Hills, Michigan<\/a>, children\u2019s librarian Michelle Stiennon moved an outdoor story time event inside as conditions deteriorated, joking that the event had become a \u201cstory-time apocalypse\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur library also made N95 masks available to staff and the public,\u201d Stiennon said. She added that attendance remained high early in the day before the smoke intensified.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised by how many kids showed up, but it seemed parents were using us as their one activity before sheltering at home,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were mostly empty after one [o\u2019clock], when the smoke started to really thicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also described the pressure on local hospitals. \u201cA co-worker accompanied a sick family member to the hospital for an unrelated illness,\u201d she said. \u201cShe said the hospital was slammed with patients, mostly for asthma or breathing issues. It was a five-hour wait for a bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health officials have repeatedly warned that wildfire smoke can worsen asthma, heart disease and other respiratory illnesses, particularly among children, older adults and those with underlying medical conditions.<\/p>\n

Those impacts are already being felt in Baltimore<\/a>, Maryland where smoke pushed air quality into the \u201cvery unhealthy\u201d range early Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy own breathing has been affected by the poor air quality levels due to wildfires in Canada,\u201d said Charlotte Watts, a primary care physician in Baltimore. \u201cThe respiratory health of my patient population is also significantly affected.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said many of her patients have little choice but to remain inside, but not everyone has access to clean indoor air.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of them are relegated to spending more time indoors due to the worsening respiratory symptoms when they exit their homes,\u201d Watts said. \u201cBut many of my patients don\u2019t have adequate air filters or air-conditioning to keep them safe at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watts said that at this point, with wildfires and the climate crisis becoming increasingly difficult to overcome, she has become \u201cprimarily concerned with the future habitable nature of this earth\u201d, adding that she believes \u201ccorporations and governments don\u2019t really care about the health of their populations\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe they all think that they\u2019re going to go to outer space and live in sci-fi colonies,\u201d Watts said. \u201cBut it\u2019s all a pipe dream.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires continues to spread across large parts of North America, bringing hazardous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-556325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}