U.S. air quality negatively affected by hundreds of active Canadian wildfires
Air quality levels in parts of the northern United States are being negatively impacted by wildfires that have forced more than 25,000 people to evacuate across Canada as of Tuesday.
There were currently 209 active fires — 106 of which are out of control — throughout Canada as of Tuesday morning, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
In some parts of the U.S., air quality has already reached unhealthy levels, particularly in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota. Separately, there was a fire on the U.S. border along the state lines of Idaho that burned about 250 acres on Sunday, which caused some evacuations, according to the Idaho Department of Lands. The fire was 100% contained and controlled as of Monday evening.
'We should expect at least a couple more rounds of Canadian smoke to come through the U.S. over the next week,' Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the Associated Press on Sunday.
Here's what we know about how the Canadian wildfires will affect the states this week.
The entire state of Minnesota is under an air quality alert until Wednesday, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) reported on Monday. The northwest part of Minnesota is expected to experience the maroon air quality (AQI) index category, which is the highest level and considered hazardous for everyone.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) is a color-coded numerical scale that helps people understand the health risks and exposures to airborne pollutants at any given time. (You can find your local AQI forecast by entering your ZIP code here.)
'The air will seem hazy or smoky and you won't be able to see long distances,' the MPCA said about this AQI level. 'The air will smell strongly of smoke.'
The MPCA recommends that anyone in northwest and central Minnesota stay indoors while the air quality alert is in effect.
Other areas experiencing unhealthy air quality levels as of Tuesday morning, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's AirNow tracker, include:
Southeastern South Dakota
Northwestern Iowa
Areas experiencing moderate air quality levels as of Tuesday morning, according to the EPA, are:
Other parts of South Dakota
North Dakota
Nebraska
Other parts of Iowa
Illinois
Strong upper-level winds will continue pushing wildfire smoke into the U.S. throughout the week, Weather.com reported on Tuesday. Other states, including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, may see smoke from the fires, although the thickness will vary compared to states like Minnesota and the Dakotas, according to CBS News.
The smoke will continue to move southeast across the U.S., affecting air quality over most of the East Coast by the end of Tuesday, according to the EPA's air quality forecast.
Wildfire smoke is mostly made up of microscopic particulate matter with elements like acids, chemicals, metals, soil and dust from whatever the fire is burning, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
When inhaled, these elements can go deep inside a person's lungs and bloodstream, and research has proven that inhaling wildfire smoke is more dangerous to humans than pollution from other sources.
Small particles of the smoke could stay in the air and continue moving throughout the area even weeks after the fires are extinguished.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that wildfire smoke can affect people immediately, causing physical reactions like wheezing, asthma attacks and chest pain.
Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service deployed an air tanker up north and said it would be sending 150 firefighters and more equipment to help Canada fight the wildfires that have already killed at least two people and forced tens of thousands to evacuate as of Tuesday.
'We are here to help our neighbors during their time of need, and our Forest Service Wildland Firefighters are the best in the business,' Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a press release Saturday. 'I am thankful for the men and women who are bravely stepping up to serve. We pray for their success as they fight fires and save lives.'
Canada had its worst wildfire season on record in June 2023, when more than 45 million acres burned. The previous record was set in 1995, when 17.5 million acres burned. Tens of thousands of Canadians were displaced for months in 2023 as historically poor air quality drifted south into the U.S., where the smoke from the Canadian wildfires engulfed the East Coast in an orange, low-visibility haze.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
E&E News
40 minutes ago
- E&E News
House Republicans see ‘massive grift' in EPA climate grants
Republicans tore into the EPA green bank program Wednesday as part of a 'massive grift' and 'revolving door' that directs taxpayer money to Democratic causes and groups. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a $27 billion program created by the Inflation Reduction Act, was a main focus of a hearing meant to example nonprofit organizations that get federal money. It was in the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, the panel formed to further the causes of the Elon Musk-founded U.S. DOGE Service, also known as the 'Department of Government Efficiency.' Advertisement Musk's relationship with Republicans is now strained over his criticism of the party's tax megabill, a fact Democrats pointed out frequently in Wednesday's hearing.
E&E News
40 minutes ago
- E&E News
EPW megabill text includes climate cuts, permitting changes
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released its portion of Republicans' party-line reconciliation bill Wednesday, largely concurring with the House's plans to repeal environmental regulations and billions of dollars of unobligated funding from Democrats' 2022 climate law. The committee's proposal comes as the Senate is racing to transform and ultimately pass the sweeping tax, energy and national security bill that the House approved last month. EPW's portion of the megabill mirrors much of what the House Energy and Commerce Committee proposed in its own text, save for some relatively minor changes and omissions, mainly due to jurisdictional differences between the chambers. Advertisement The text would gut climate and air pollution programs created by the Inflation Reduction Act, delay the implementation of Democrats' methane pollution fee and implement a narrower repeal of EPA's vehicle emissions rule.
E&E News
40 minutes ago
- E&E News
EPA's new AI tool disagrees with Zeldin on climate change
EPA has a new generative artificial intelligence tool. And it believes climate change is dangerous. That puts it at odds with the Trump administration, which aims to sideline climate change research and data to make it easier to repeal regulations. Closer to home, the AI tool threatens to provide answers that contradict the agency's leader, Administrator Lee Zeldin, who is preparing to release a draft finding in the near future that contends greenhouse gases pose no risk to the public, as he tries to revoke the endangerment finding, a 2009 scientific declaration that underpins most EPA climate regulations. Advertisement The agency's Office of Mission Support released the internal tool for staff May 22, saying in a memo obtained by POLITICO's E&E News that it was intended to help 'modernize the agency and gain new efficiencies.' The office also set some rules for use, including telling staff not to 'use the tool as the sole performer of an inherently government function or as the decisionmaker in any EPA activities,' and to check its answers for 'accuracy and bias.' 'Recognize that output from the tool may be convincing, but it may be wrong,' said OMS, the agency's administrative office. The Trump administration has used AI heavily. But experts said that despite its rollout last month, the EPA tool was probably not developed under President Donald Trump. Ann Dunkin, who served as chief information officer at the Department of Energy under former President Joe Biden, said because the tool was designed for internal use and utilizes EPA data, it is probably an artifact of the Biden era. 'What the departments and agencies are trying to do is experiment with AI and figure out how it can help and how it can make people more productive. And that's what's going on here,' she said. The Biden administration maintained inventories of AI tools, which showed 17 models in use at EPA last year. The memo introducing the tool last month stated that it has 'been in the works for some time.' EPA didn't respond to requests for comment. But the tool itself answered questions submitted by three agency employees, who were granted anonymity to avoid retribution. It explained its own origin by stating that it was 'developed by OpenAI, and it is integrated into Microsoft products and services, such as Azure OpenAI Service.' Beth Simone Noveck, a professor of experiential AI at Northeastern University, said that seemed to indicate EPA had a contract with Microsoft for an AI language model that had been customized for use in agency work. The tool's views on climate science are conventional — if not always accurate. For example, one EPA staffer shared an exchange in which the tool appeared to say the power sector is the largest source of U.S. climate pollution. In fact, it's second to transportation. EPA is expected to soon argue as part of a regulatory rollback that U.S. power plants contribute too little carbon emissions to planetary warming to warrant regulation. The AI tool is clear that heat-trapping pollution poses a threat to public health and welfare — a key aspect of a foundational EPA scientific conclusion, known as the endangerment finding — that underpins most climate regulations. Zeldin is expected to try to undo the finding soon. The AI tool listed 'extreme weather events,' vector-borne diseases, and food and water shortages among the threats posed by human-caused warming, in search results shared with POLITICO'S E&E News. 'Climate change is real and is supported by a vast body of scientific evidence,' it states in one answer. 'It refers to significant and lasting changes in the Earth's climate, particularly an increase in global temperatures, largely due to human activities such as burning fossil fuels, deforestation and industrial processes.' Trump has rejected the basic tenets of climate change and is pursuing an energy agenda that promotes unfettered production of oil, gas and coal. His administration has also doubled down on the use of AI as a governance tool. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who co-ran the so-called Department of Government Efficiency until both left the cost-cutting initiative, wrote in a November op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that they planned to use 'advanced technology' to identify and kill rules that weren't in line with recent Supreme Court decisions. AI was also used in writing a recent Department of Health and Human Services report on U.S. life expectancy and is blamed for the report citing studies that don't exist. Other agencies are launching new AI tools right now. Noveck of Northeastern University said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration got one around the same time as EPA. She said AI tools are good at weeding out jargon and translating regulatory text into plain language to make it more accessible and usable by people and businesses. But, she said, they are not a substitute for human judgment in policymaking. 'You cannot use these tools to replace humans,' Noveck said. 'You need them to act as auxiliaries, as helpers, as assistants — effectively as a next generation of word processor.' The HHS report had evidently not been reviewed for accuracy, she said. 'It's irresponsible, it's unprofessional, and it's shoddy,' she added. 'And when it comes to policies that affect the lives of millions of people, it's immoral and unconscionable.' Dunkin, the former DOE official, said the OMS rules for use also seemed to indicate that it was a Biden-era tool, despite making its debut under Trump. 'It doesn't sound like a DOGE project, because those folks don't believe in checking their work,' said Dunkin, who was EPA's chief information officer during former President Barack Obama's second term. DOGE took over the existing U.S. Digital Service, a decade-old White House office, and from there gained access to agencies and their data. Some of that data appears to have been transferred outside of the federal government, Dunkin said. She added that during the Biden administration, EPA developed AI tools to help speed environmental reviews by gathering documents and permitting requirements from across the government.
