Smoke from Canadian wildfires is blanketing cities in the United States, with air quality warnings in effect across the Midwest and toward the East Coast as hundreds of fires rage out of control north of the border.
The Detroit area woke up on Wednesday to some of the worst air quality in the United States as smoke from Canada’s 480 wildfires blanketed much of the Great Lakes region.
Earlier in the day, the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow site showed Detroit in the “hazardous” range and warned that “everyone should stay indoors and reduce activity levels.” The alert has since been downgraded to “very unhealthy,” with older adults, children and teens, as well as people with lung disease, advised to stay indoors.
The dark haze spread as far south as Missouri and Kentucky, with around 87 million people at risk of poor air quality due to the smoke, according to the tracking service IQAir.com.
Three U.S. cities—Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis—were in the top five in terms of the worst air quality globally, per the tracker.