NEW YORK, 7 Jun: Smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into the U.S. East Coast and Midwest on Wednesday, covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze, sending school recesses indoors and prompting people to fish out pandemic-era face masks.
\nWhile Canadian officials expanded evacuation orders and asked other countries for help fighting more than 420 fires nationwide, air quality with what the U.S. rates as \u201chazardous\u201d levels of pollution extended into central New York, with massive tongues of \u201cunhealthy\u201d air extending as far as Virginia and Indiana.
\nIn Baltimore, where officials warned residents to stay indoors when possible and limit outdoor exertion, Debbie Funk sported a blue surgical mask as she and husband Jack Hughes took their daily walk around Fort McHenry, a national monument overlooking the Patapsco River. The air hung thick over the water, obscuring the horizon as distant ships pushed slowly through the haze.
\n\u201cI walked outside this morning and it was like a waft of smoke,\u201d said Funk, who said the couple had considered skipping the walk but wanted some exercise. The two planned to stay inside later Wednesday.
\nCanada\u2019s wildfire season started early this year and accelerated very quickly, exhausting firefighting resources across the country, Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre spokesperson Jennifer Kamau said.
\nSmoke from the blazes in various parts of the country has been lapping into the U.S. since last month but intensified with a recent spate of fires in Quebec, where more than 100 fires were burning and consid-ered out of control Tuesday.
\nThe largest town in Northern Quebec \u2014 Chibo-ugamau, population about about 7,500 \u2014 was evacu-ated Tuesday, after another Quebec community was left to burn Monday, drawing the ire of local residents.
\nQuebec Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault said Monday that authorities had no choice because the fire around the hamlet of Clova was too intense to send in water bombers. That remained true Tuesday, he said, but he noted that no homes had burned.
\nKamau said more than 950 firefighters and other personnel have already arrived from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and crews from Costa Rica will be arriving soon.
\nAcross the border, the effects of the blazes blotted out skylines and irritated throats.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s sunny, but there\u2019s no sun,\u201d Michele Kluk said as she emerged from a Target store in Mechanic-sburg, Pennsylvania, with \u201ca bunch\u201d of allergy medi-cation in response to the air quality. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK, 7 Jun: Smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into the U.S. East Coast and Midwest on Wednesday, covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze, sending school recesses indoors and prompting people to fish out pandemic-era face masks. While Canadian officials expanded evacuation orders and asked other countries for help fighting more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-217979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}