{"id":557567,"date":"2026-07-19T14:27:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T14:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/557567\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T14:27:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T14:27:48","slug":"canadian-wildfire-smoke-turns-air-hazardous-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/557567\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian wildfire smoke turns air hazardous in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Heavy, pungent smoke from Canadian wildfires darkened skies in the US on Thursday, from the Great Lakes to parts of the East Coast, reducing visibility for commuters and prompting warnings about air quality that made outdoor activities dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>Detroit\u2019s air quality was among the worst in the world for major cities, as a lingering high pressure system trapped smoke from dozens of\u00a0fires\u00a0in Canada and northern Minnesota and winds from the northwest blew it into Michigan, said Steven Freitag, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pontiac, Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSure enough, it arrived in force here and it\u2019s really pretty extreme levels,\u201d said Mr Freitag, who said visibility in some areas was reduced to half a mile.<\/p>\n<p>Some other cities across the Great Lakes states also registered\u00a0air quality\u00a0ranging from unhealthy to hazardous.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"427\" width=\"640\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/canadian-wildfire-smoke-turns-air-hazardous-in-the-us.jpg\" alt=\"A dog walks along the shores of Lake Superior amid heavy wildfire smoke\" data-title=\"Minnesota Wildfires\" data-copyright-holder=\"AP\" data-copyright-notice=\"\" data-credit=\"Scott Bauer\" data-usage-terms=\"This content is intended for editorial use only. For other uses, additional clearances may be required.\"\/>A dog walks along the shores of Lake Superior amid heavy wildfire smoke (Scott Bauer\/AP)\n<\/p>\n<p>Fine particles in smoke are especially dangerous for children and people with health conditions such as asthma and heart disease.<\/p>\n<p>In the New York City area, a thick, gloomy haze tinged the morning sky in orange and yellow, reducing visibility so dramatically that it partly obscured Manhattan\u2019s prominent skyline.<\/p>\n<p>City officials opened cooling centres as health officials urged New Yorkers to limit strenuous and prolonged outdoor activities and to stick to air-conditioned spaces as much as possible.<\/p>\n<p>State officials distributed tens of thousands of face masks designed to filter out 95% of tiny airborne particles, including dust and smog, at the city\u2019s Penn Station and Grand Central transit hubs and other major locations.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Zohran Mamdani said schools, parks and other city agencies were adjusting programming, moving activities indoors, rescheduling events and adjusting operations as air quality was expected to worsen as the day progressed.<\/p>\n<p>The state department of environmental conservation issued an air quality health advisory.<\/p>\n<p>The agency said there was a potential for temporary spikes of \u201cvery unhealthy\u201d air quality from Buffalo in the state\u2019s western corner to Rochester by Lake Ontario, Syracuse in the central region, down to the greater New York City area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heavy, pungent smoke from Canadian wildfires darkened skies in the US on Thursday, from the Great Lakes to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-557567","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\/557567","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=557567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}