On Saturday, several wildfires raged throughout Canada, sending smoke spouting over several states in the Midwest and bringing out health warnings for at least the third day.
Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, as well as eastern Nebraska and parts of Indiana and Illinois, all had air quality alerts in place in the US.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, had some of the worst air pollution in the world since Friday, according to a report from the Swiss-based air quality monitoring organization IQAir.
In a sizable portion of Minnesota, the Air Quality Index (AQI), a system used to determine how much air pollution is present, is expected to fall into the red or unhealthy category through Saturday.
According to Joe Strus, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area, “we’ve sort of been dealing with this, day in and day out,” “when you walk outside, you can taste the smoke and you can smell it.”
Forecasters warned that smoky skies would cover the Midwest for the majority of Saturday, but they might start to fade before extending south to Tennessee and Missouri.
People with lung and heart conditions, as well as children, the elderly, and pregnant women, are particularly at risk from the poor air quality.
Wildfires in Canada have not been the only triggers of air quality warnings in the US and other countries. A record-breaking early wildfire season in 2023 swept northern Europe across the Atlantic.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reported “out-of-control” fires on Saturday in Yukon and the Northwest Territories as well as in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario.
According to the center, there were 717 fires nationwide.
According to a report released by The Canadian Press news agency, Environment Canada reported “extremely high” levels of air pollution were present in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and the Northwest Territories.
Although health risks were reportedly lower, areas in British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec were also being monitored for air quality.
Source: Aljazeera
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