Canadian wildfire sends hazardous smoke spewing into US

Out-of-control wildfires were raging yesterday in the Canadian province of Ontario, sending dangerous smoke spewing into the United States, where millions of people were exposed to unhealthy air.

US states near the Canadian border, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois, were particularly choked, as the northeast, including New York, was also experiencing deteriorating air quality.

Yesterday afternoon, tracker IQAir listed Minneapolis, Detroit and Chicago as the top three most polluted cities in the world.

A thick, hazy cast hung over New York, where state authorities warned of fine particulate matter from the fires that would make the outdoors "unhealthy" for everyone across the New York metro area and Long Island.

Even worse air enveloped the central and western regions of the state.

Authorities encouraged New Yorkers to spend as little time outside as possible, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani warning of the "serious threat" of heavy heat and unsafe air.

Libraries and train stations were offering free masks, while hundreds of cooling centres were open across the city for those without access to air conditioning.

"This could become the most significant smoke event in New York City since 2023, and conditions will be closely monitored for any deterioration," the city's Department of Emergency Management said.

That year, the city's skies turned an eerie orange, with the air quality index reaching a dangerous 465.

'Our chests feel tight'

In the Midwest, current index levels were already far beyond that figure, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency tracker.

Chicago, along with Toledo, Ohio, and areas in Minnesota relatively close to the fires, were well into the 700s on the air quality index, with much of the rest of the upper Midwest also experiencing AQI levels in the worst category of "hazardous".

Erin Lucey, 38, works on her family's organic vegetable farm in south-central Wisconsin and spent the morning harvesting zucchini, beans and cucumbers, among other tasks, with labourers wearing masks in muggy heat to filter out the hazy smoke blanketing the area.

"Our chests feel tight," she said, saying the smoke combined with recent searing heatwaves and parched fields left conditions feeling "eerie".

"We are all thinking of the delicate balance of growing food in this type of future, and remarking how we can't imagine what it will be like here in 100 years," she said.

"If people were outside like us working and seeing how everything looks, if they didn't have the convenience of air conditioning, we would be making much faster changes to address the climate crisis," she added.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy said it expected the dangerous conditions to continue through today, and that "our best model for smoke only predicts out to 48 hours".

"That model is currently showing improvements on Saturday, but it is likely that smoke will linger and recirculate for a while," the agency said.

Evacuations in Canada

In Canada, the latest data shows there are more than 130 active fires in northwestern Ontario, with at least 60 out of control.

Authorities there have formally requested additional assistance from the federal government, in particular seeking air support to evacuate remote communities.

The Ontario Provincial Police said 15 communities and their surrounding areas have been evacuated so far.

"More than 150 fire crews and nearly 50 firefighting aircraft are working around the clock to protect communities from the fires in northern Ontario," said the province's Premier Doug Ford on X.

So far, Canadian wildfires have scorched at least 1.9 million hectares this year, an area nearly the size of Slovenia.

That damage remains far off the pace of 2023, Canada's worst wildfire season on record, when nearly 18 million hectares burned in the country.

Northeast Spain wildfire destroys over 12,000 hectares - authorities

A major wildfire that has been raging for two days in northeast Spain has reduced more than 12,000 hectares of land to ash, regional authorities said, warning of a "very high risk of spreading".

"The night has been very complex, very difficult. At this time, we estimate that the burned area exceeds 12,000 hectares", Roberto Bermúdez de Castro, who is responsible for security issues within the regional government of Aragon, told the media.

Spain is still reeling from another fire last week in the southern Andalusia region that killed 13 people - including seven Britons and an American - and destroyed 7,000 hectares, the deadliest such disaster in the country's recent history.

More than 450 firefighters backed by army reinforcements were battling the growing blaze near the city of Zaragoza, in a sparsely populated part of the Aragon region, where five small villages have been evacuated.

Peak temperatures of up to 40C have hit Aragon in recent days.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is increasing the length, intensity and frequency of extreme heat, which creates favourable conditions for the spread of wildfires and complicates firefighting efforts.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned Tuesday on a visit to fire-devastated Andalusia that Spain was facing a "complicated summer" for wildfires.