Toxic smoke from Canadian wildfires could linger over parts of the US for days, officials warned: millions of Americans across the Eastern US remain under air pollution warnings.
On Thursday, schools were closed, air travel was disrupted and residents were again urged to stay inside and limit or avoid outdoor activities
In particular, according to IQAir, New York City had the worst air quality of any big city in the world on Thursday morning, followed by Detroit. On Thursday, air quality levels were in the 150-200 range, marking a slight improvement from Wednesday when record-setting hazardous levels were observed, per Fox Weather.
Bryan Ramsey, a US National Weather Service meteorologist, told the Associated Press that the weather system driving the smoke south “will probably be hanging around at least for the next few days. Conditions are likely to remain unhealthy, at least until the wind direction changes or the fires get put out. Since the fires are raging – they’re really large – they’re probably going to continue for weeks. But it’s really just going be all about the wind shift”.