Smoke from wildfires in Canada spread across the central and eastern United States on Thursday, disrupting air travel and routines at work and school for a second straight day.
Millions of people in cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Washington woke up to air pollution from the fires, leading them to wear masks used during the coronavirus emergency. New York once again had the worst air quality among major global cities on Thursday, according to the IQAir World Air Quality Index.
Canada has been battling an active wildfire season for much of the past month, with fires burning across much of its 10 provinces and territories. More than 400 fires have burned across Canada this week and have burned about 4 million hectares so far this year, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
The White House said in a statement that the United States will send all available federal firefighting teams to respond to the blazes raging in Canada. U.S. President Joe Biden called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday to offer “additional support” for the response to the fires.
Inbound flights to New York’s LaGuardia Airport and Philadelphia International Airport were briefly suspended on Thursday because of the smoke. Ground stops and delays disrupted flights primarily from the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Ohio. All flights nationwide to Newark Liberty International Airport were delayed.
“Reduced visibility due to wildfire smoke will continue to impact air travel today,” the FAA said.
The National Weather Service said the smoke would push south and west Friday, deteriorating air quality in Alabama and Georgia.
Earlier this spring, fires in Alberta, Canada’s main oil-producing province, forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes and caused more than a dozen oil and gas companies to temporarily shut down or reduce operations. Forests in eastern provinces such as Quebec are now seeing more fires.
Over the past decade, scientists have observed growing fires in boreal forests in the northern hemisphere. Due to global warming, average temperatures in the northern part of the planet are rising faster than near the equator as reflective snow and ice in the Arctic melt.