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Smoke from Canadian wildfires spreads to US Midwest

The smoke from three wildfires in Canada is now spreading to the Upper Midwest of the United States, bringing back memories of the heavy pollution that blew south from Canada during the worst fire season ever recorded there two years ago.

Smoke pollution is already blowing through Minnesota and other neighboring states. This poses a serious health threat to the tens or millions of people who live there. Over the next few days, it is expected to reach New York City and other East Coast Cities in a less severe level.

Doug Brugge is a researcher in public health at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He said that airborne particulate matters are the greatest environmental health risks we know of. It causes respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological damage, and these smoke plumes are at high levels in comparison to what Americans are usually exposed to.

Since the beginning of May, scores of wildfires have spread across Canada. They forced thousands of people to evacuate and disrupted crude oil production. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center, there were over 200 active fires on Monday. Of those, 106 were out-of-control.

The majority of the fires have occurred in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The current crisis is still not close to the 17 million hectares that burned in 2023.

According to IQAir (a website that monitors the air quality in various parts of the world), the air quality rating for New York will rise to 77 early on Wednesday morning as a result. Readings in Philadelphia, Washington and Boston will also increase to 70, and 68 in Boston.

According to the website, an air quality rating below 50 is "good," readings between 100-300 are "unhealthy" or "very unhealthy," and anything higher is "hazardous."

Ely, Minnesota near the Manitoba border, was one of the worst places for air pollution on Tuesday afternoon. The reading was 336, which is considered "hazardous".

The AQI in Duluth (Minnesota) was 164 in the afternoon on Tuesday, down from 309. In Flin Flon (Manitoba), about 800 miles (1300 km) north, in an area where Canadian wildfires have been concentrated, it was 202 in the afternoon, down from 359 the morning.

In IQAir’s list of the major cities in the world, Minneapolis ranked third with a 168 air quality reading, tied with Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

VULNERABLE PEOPLE

According to Brugge, children, the elderly, and those with chronic respiratory, cardiac and other illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease, are the most susceptible to the effects caused by smoke.

He said that the risk of hospitalization or death was low for people who were healthy and young. There is evidence, however, that air pollution increases blood pressure and inflammation in these people.

According to a recent California study, exposure to wildfire smoke can also increase the risk of lung cancer patients dying, especially among non-smokers. However, certain cancer treatments may mitigate this effect.

Some farmers, however, believe that the fires' effects are not entirely negative. On online forums such as Facebook, some farmers claim that their best harvests have come from years when there was a pall of smoke from wildfires from Canada. They believe that the smoke can protect crops vulnerable from scorching sun.

(source: Reuters)