Canadian wildfires send smoke into Great Lakes and Northeast

natureJul 15, 202627511,989

Massive plumes from more than 3,000 Canadian wildfires that have burned nearly 4.5 million acres this summer are streaming south into the United States, bringing thick smoke into the Great Lakes and Northeast, CNN reports. Forecasts show the smoke will push unhealthy concentrations of fine particulate matter, PM2.5, over more than 100 million people across the Midwest and Northeast, with cities from Chicago to New York, Washington, DC and Boston in the smoke path. A weather pattern tied to a record-breaking heat dome centered over the central US is steering Canadian smoke east and south; meteorologists say a change in the pattern will allow plumes to sink to the surface Wednesday and Thursday and raise ground-level pollution. Much of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin are already under air-quality alerts, and the National Weather Service warned Chicago could see air-quality impacts later this week. Health officials warn people with lung or heart disease, children and older adults face elevated risk from PM2.5, and advise limiting outdoor activity and keeping windows closed. The smoke may modestly reduce incoming sunlight and temper some heat in the Northeast, but with several months left in wildfire season more Canadian smoke events remain possible.

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani

@mayor.nyc.gov

Air quality has reached unhealthy levels in parts of NYC due to smoke from Canadian wildfires. Poor air quality affects everyone, but some people are more sensitive to it than others, including people with heart or lung conditions, older adults, pregnant New Yorkers, and infants and children.

253345d ago

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani361

Avoid unnecessary outdoor activities, head to a cool space indoors with AC if possible, and follow City guidance: on.nyc.gov/firesmoke Free masks are available at locations citywide: on.nyc.gov/freemask

BC Ministry of Ending Car Reliance36

Calling them "Canadian" is unnecessary. That's like calling them tree-based. More appropriate would have been "climate change-caused." We are all fucked in this together.

Wilde Butch28

As a reminder if you've had a recent mysterious flu or respiratory illness especially if you know you've had COVID... YOU are at risk Wearing a respirator greatly reduces the impact of breathing smoke and is a good practice anytime to prevent getting sick Mask up Safe air is community care 🖤

NotAllFunnyAndGames27

Our 🇨🇦 pilots are DYING fighting US Wildfires This morning I’m gasping in a cloud of smoke from a US wildfire. Perhaps this is more than a “ the other guys” problem?

Ryan Germann25

Object lesson in "environmental issues don't stay isolated in a specific geographical region." :-(

Wannabe SHODAN 🔜 Gen Con18

Air quality sucks indoors? Build one of these, it'll help. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsi%E...

Quoting this

The Serfs (youtube.com/theserfstv)184

This is more helpful information than any Canadian politician is putting out. Mark Carney is posting videos about how important pipelines and partnerships with energy companies are while over 800 fires are burning across the country

Dani Kasprzak13

Ha ha imagine if our mayor had a Bluesky account and posted helpful information

Jay Pitter8

We’re becoming known for something other than being polite. #wildfires #climatecrisis

Lindsay Beyerstein8

Midtown smelled like a campfire this morning.

Corey Atad7

bro had to call us out 😞

Cian 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ (he/him)6

Even if you are not currently impacted, it's a good reminder to to all of us to clean our air filters & make sure they're working. For portable ones, ideally have an extra filter around in case you need it. And those covid masks k/n95 masks are helpful to have on hand! 😷

Laura Haynes👩‍🔬⚾️🐾💙5

It’s really bad in CT too…even indoors with the AC on it’s giving me a headache

Enough Eh4

#canada See how our country affects other parts of the world? We need to care because we all live together on this rock. We need to protest our government. Stop them from defunding programs that could help.

۞ Heather B. ۞4

Here we go again. It's not as bad *yet* as last time when I walked outside and the sky was nuclear orange, but it's bad. Air is thick and smells like burnt toast on top of it being nearly 100 degrees. Please don't go outside unless it's necessary. 🙏🏼😷

Marisa Kabas

@marisakabas.bsky.social

i cannot handle canadian wildfire smoke and the threat of diarrhea lettuce at the same time

234145d ago

Chris Kluwe232

Could be worse, could be diarrhea smoke and wildfire lettuce

Rich Burroughs72

Hopefully they don’t invent diarrhea smoke

Call me Spags48

This was the sun this morning on my commute to the office (I am in the Toronto, Canada area).

Karen K. Ho36

There's also an outbreak of Legionnaire's disease: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/n...

Fitzie32

Its like living in a sepia toned filtered world. So strange

Chris Rabbit21

this is honestly terrifying I don't think I've ever seen the air this bad in New England.

Quoting this

Anjali Dayal654

next time someone asks me why we need good government I’m going to yell DIARRHEA LETTUCE

Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis204

You forgot the heat wave.

Ahhhhh197

One of the coldest years of the rest of our lives :) Organize for socialism NOW

Sharon82

truly, we live in the cyberpunk 2020 timeline on like a 20 year delay

Bob Kopp23

Compound heat wave-smoke-explosive diarrhea extreme event

Twlldun21

🎼 Diarrhoea lettuce…climbing up the Eiffel Tower 🎼

Joshua Eaton7

Saw Diarrhea Lettuce open for Jello Biafra in ‘97. Good set.

Jack Graham7

Insisting upon the UK spelling of 'diarrhoea' so the phrase 'diarrhoea lettuce' contains TWO unpronounced vowels.

Real gay of Tampa Bay6

Yay for shitting yourself to death like it’s the Oregon Trail from parasitic diarrhea lettuce because the secretary of health thinks science is for nerds. Isn’t America so great?!?

Kerrin5

Everyday brings something new and exciting

Sarah Hörst

@planetdr.bsky.social

It’s in this hot AF part of the summer, surrounded by wildfire smoke from thousands of miles away, unable to eat lettuce that I find myself thinking maybe we should’ve made some different decisions.

59645d ago

Sarah Hörst44

(Don’t worry I think this every day but it’s just Very Visceral at the moment)

Justin Buist3

Things are bad when sitting outside eating a salad is riskier than staying inside and smoking meth. Staying inside and not smoking meth is even safer, of course, but, with no salads, people gonna get bored.

helchose.bsky.social1

I voted Kamala, I don't know what went wrong here.

Governor Tim Walz

@governorwalz.mn.gov

Grateful for the partnership of Premier Doug Ford and our Canadian allies as they work to rescue Minnesota campers from ongoing wildfires on the border. www.fox9.com/news/minneso...

62945d ago

Rachel Wales13

Ford cut our fire fighting budget in Ontario. He's not the hero here Tim. It's the men and women risking their lives.

TeSplendente7

Truly hope all the campers get home safe. Don't let the guy fool you though, he is currently funding the crisis.

L. Pa 🇨🇦🍁2

Doug Ford is the single worst thing that has ever happened to Ontario. Huge trump fan and the most corrupt premier we have ever seen. He just changed freedom of information laws so we cant investigate him. You are welcome to have him in your country

patfederle.bsky.social1

Praying for safety for campers and rescue/fire crews! 🙏

Brooke

@brooklynmarie.bsky.social

Also don't forget how helpful KN-95s are in filtering airborne particulate matter from wildfire smoke 🥰

Selfie on the bus. I'm wearing glasses and an olive-green KN-95 mask.

49344d ago

Brooke37

And don't forget to keep your CR boxes going!!

Victorious Bleue2

P100s are rated for smoke but yeah, N95s are WAY BETTER than nothing, or a bandana or gaiter Please limit exposure! Even with N95 you can get particles in the lungs which can lodge there for life, compromising pulmonary & cardiac health Please stay safe! Tape windows shut w blue painter tape!

Big Spooky ColBosch1

I'm pricing half-face respirators right now. Partially it's for airbrushing, but I get the feeling that I'm going to need one for air quality issues. The future is everyone's a cybergoth.

Dr. Pete Meyers1

Casual post-Apocalypse is a good look for you.

Rhode PVD1

I was the only person I saw outside or driving with a mask, so thanks for showing yourself.

The Mórrígan1

Yes! I pulled out a few today for that purpose, right after I put fresh filters into my HEPA filters.

Quoting this

CJ Lemire39

Time to dust off those Corsi-Rosenthal boxes as well

David Roberts

@volts.wtf

I wonder, if you polled people, how much extra they would pay each year to have their city *not* be covered in thick, choking wildfire smoke for days at a time. I wonder if that might give you more insight into "willingness to pay" vis a vis climate change than asking in the abstract.

40045d ago

Conte Mosca10

tut tut, market theory teaches that if people don’t want to disrupt their families, jobs, & lives by moving away from the wildfire zones*, then they prefer smoke *note: “wildfire zones” expanding to entire country by 2100

Chris Bataille1

You have to be careful with these sorts of studies because there’s up to a three times difference between the willingness to accept (WTA) pollution as opposed to the willingness to pay (WTP) to eliminate pollution that already exists. There’s an endowment effect on existing states.

Brad Johnson1

Did you ever look at the polling the Hillary Clinton campaign did to convince themselves not to push for a carbon tax?

John Voorheis1

This paper does the revealed preference version of this! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

888lin.bsky.social1

Would they give up their cars? How about fast fashion?

Quoting this

Jake Grumbach48

Actually decent idea for a survey experiment by an intrepid junior scholar

Greg Greene (he/him/his)15

A worthwhile question, this. Already, people pay in the form of canceled outdoor events, canceled kid-camp activities, air-filtration devices (whole home, room, facial) … etc. Seems reasonable to poll about the dollar cost folks place on that.

Act free to be free5

Follow up question: How much do you want Exxon, Chevron, and BP to pay for the wildfires, floods, droughts, and heatwaves they have caused?

Amanda Mull

@amandamull.bsky.social

Something slightly apocalyptic feeling about New York City having a southern-style violent afternoon thunderstorm and being like “ahh well maybe it’ll help clear out some of the wildfire smoke”

37545d ago

Amanda Mull48

My contacts do not feel great dawg

Rich Uncle Pennybags3

It sort of made it smell like a wet ashtray.

Sara Sanchez2

We've been getting these in Chicago too and I'm like wait, where do I live again?!

Fiona Taylor2

It somehow got even grosser out!

lrdimdiscouragd.bsky.social1

Quite the opposite as it turns out

Kent right now1

The T storms increased the humidity, it’s disgusting out there right now.

Quoting this

Helena Fitzgerald40

eight fifteen pm and it’s still a real “is that good” color out there

i'm just patrick, deep down4

well, at least our climate is still a melting pot amirite

jon ben-menachem4

I did have this exact thought process

Caleb Crain3

Narrator voice: In fact, the wildfire smoke didn’t clear out.

Dr. Lucky Tran

@luckytran.com

Air quality in New York City is currently unhealthy due to wildfire smoke. To protect yourself, please wear a high quality mask.

18945d ago

Dr. Lucky Tran100

You can pick up KN95 masks for free from your local NYC library

Shawn1

It’s higher here in western NY

Quoting this

Perfectly Normal Sam3

lemme tell you it tastes real bad out there it smells bad it chokes and makes you cough and that was just me walking 100 feet to my car

Forbes

@forbes.com

Wildfire smoke has settled thickly in parts of New York, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota—and it’s heading further south.

18045d ago

Fitzie5

Massachusetts 11am today. No filter

Alif Yaa3

Canada's new export and F-U to Trump.

Grannie Annie3

Minnesota here. We not only have that smoke but smoke from wildfires in the Boundary Waters. Just had to bring my cat inside from the deck because he was coughing so bad.

Holly Ewart-O'Neall aka Waite2

Gloucester at noon today. I felt grit on my tongue. The Canadians in that region must be tasting nothing but ash. My heart breaks for the loss of habit and wildlife

nuthinbutnets1

Nasty here in Western NY; rated unhealthy for people with respiratory issues.

Lory 🇨🇦1

Blame Doug Ford for cutting 67% of the emergency forest firefighting budget. He's the asshole premier of Ontario. The same one that put out the Ronald Reagan commercial about tariffs during the World series. He's also a big fan of trump: until trump tariffed Ontario. He's an american at heart.

Quoting this

The Joy🐇6

Boy it sure was yeller today

Knitting Cat5

Don’t Look Up Drill, Baby, Kill.

Andrew Rakich

@atunshei.bsky.social

I’ve been traveling and over the past 2 weeks I’ve experienced 115 degree heat in DC, 3 feet of flooding in New Orleans from an ordinary summer storm, and now I’m in Massachusetts and have to turn the lights on to see at 11:30 AM because the sun is almost totally obscured by wildfire smoke.

19245d ago

Andrew Rakich56

We are in global ecological freefall and climate catastrophe will only get worse, and worse, and worse. It’s already happened and cannot be averted. Naive “hope” is obscene in the face of this holocaust. I don’t want your feckless hope, I want *action* and revenge on the bastards who did this to us

Bouvier Mom1

the world is falling apart in every way possible and there is no help or plan to protect us

Quoting this

Andrew Rakich38

Nothing left for it but to make great art with spooky poly vegetarian baddies while the world burns, Year Without a Summer style

Barb McQuade

@barbmcquade.bsky.social

On my way to Marquette for tomorrow’s book talk. Spooky day on the Mackinac Bridge with smoke from Canadian wildfires.

21745d ago

Bea3

Down here, an hour and a half from the Bridge, it is spooky, too, and at times I can smell the smoke. I walked along Lake Mich this morning and thought a cottager had left the yard light on. It was the sun, glowing vaguely orange through the trees.

Tiny Barb3

This RI right now. It’s bad! The pic doesn’t do it justice to how orange it is out there.

terrilynn2.bsky.social2

That bridge spooks me even on a sunny, calm day! 😱

Koehn2

Make sure to pick up some pasties for your trip back below the bridge!

Little Bits of Wit & Wisdom2

You're driving in the middle rumble lane. That always creeps me out.

Sheri Swokowski2

Welcome to WI. Air quality is poor in the southern part of the state, too.

Trevor Henderson 🍉 (commissions closed)

@slimyswampghost.bsky.social

woke up to the wildfire smoke baking the entire outside world in sickly neon nuclear yellow, so i guess we're staying inside today

23245d ago

wil 🦇13

fully fallout new vegas color grading out there today

Allison O'Toole2

I had a doggy playdate planned, but I took ONE step outside and immediately cancelled it. Stay safe, it's brutal out there!

Zac Thompson2

Perfect for a movie marathon.

Franken-Pattern1

Be safe over there, Trevor!

internetracecar1

it alternates between smelling rancid and piney, like desperately trying to mop a disgusting floor that never gets clean

Your Local Kobold Medic1

Perfect time to draw a wildfire creature?

Peter Gleick

@petergleick.bsky.social

Every #climate scientist today to every elected official: Dammit it, we told you so for decades and you ignored us. You reap what you sow, and you sowed carbon dioxide. This is what we're reaping today.

Dangerous levels of air quality throughout the north and eastern United States from Canadian wildfires, as shown on the Purple Air map.

11044d ago

Norm Charlatan

@normcharlatan.bsky.social

Most of the conversation about domes surrounds winter weather, but the reality is that extreme heat and wildfire smoke are just as likely to cancel games.

13544d ago

Norm Charlatan75

lol, I guess I posted about this last year (11 months ago)