{"id":245040,"date":"2026-07-16T17:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/245040\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:37:08","slug":"philadelphia-region-feels-impact-of-wildfire-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/245040\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia region feels impact of wildfire smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This story is part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/whyy-news-climate-desk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n<p>From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia residents were hit with the smell of smoke and hazy skies as they made their way to work Thursday morning.\n<\/p>\n<p>Health officials are warning people to limit their time outdoors as air quality across much of the U.S. reaches unhealthy levels because of wildfire smoke traveling from Canada.\n  <\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania is under a <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/code-red-air-quality-pennsylvania-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Code Red Air Quality Action Day<\/a> due to harmful air quality caused by high levels of particulate matter. These fine, tiny particles, known as PM 2.5, are 30 times smaller than the width of human hair, and are easily inhalable. The particles can settle deep in the lungs and enter the bloodstream.\n<\/p>\n<p>Breathing in particulate matter can <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-wildfire-smoke-health-protection\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cause respiratory and cardiovascular problems<\/a>, and impact vulnerable populations like children, the elderly and people with health conditions such as asthma.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWildfire smoke is among the most toxic air pollution that we can have,\u201d\u00a0 said Ruth McDermott-Levy, co-director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children\u2019s Health and the Environment at Villanova University College of Nursing.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s because it burns things like wood and other things that are not meant to be burned and breathed,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt could be a camper, it could be a refrigerator, all kinds of things then become toxic pollutants that we breathe in, and as the wildfire travels, it picks up the other pollutants.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>More than 180 wildfires are burning in Canada, causing severe levels of smoke to travel more than a thousand miles \u2014 impacting multiple states in the U.S. Several wildfires are also burning in northern Minnesota.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[30257,69,71,70,5206,55197],"class_list":["post-245040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-air-quality","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}