Major League Baseball postponed two games on Wednesday because of the extremely "hazardous" air quality in the eastern United States, due to over 400 active wildfires in Canada, including more than 150 in Quebec.
For the past two days, New York City has experienced some of the worst air quality of any major city on Earth. The White Sox/Yankees game in the Bronx and the Tigers/Phillies game in Philadelphia were postponed, as was a WNBA game in Brooklyn.
The Environmental Protection Agency's Air Quality Index (AQI) states that a reading over 50 is potentially harmful. From 101 to 150 is classified as "unhealthy for sensitive groups", from 151 to 200 is "unhealthy", 201 to 300 is "very unhealthy", and over 301 is "hazardous".
The air quality in the Bronx was 413, as of 4:30 p.m. ET. Philadelphia's AQI was 233.
During last night's game, which the White Sox won 3-2, the AQI was above 150 in the first inning and over 200 shortly after the game.
The Washington Post reported:
For the second day in a row, New York logged some of the worst air quality of any major city on the planet. But that was hardly the only place to experience the eerie, unsettling and throat-burning smoke that scientists say could become a more common occurrence in a warming world. . . .
In Philadelphia, as elsewhere, schools canceled field trips, moved recess indoors and postponed athletic matches. In Washington, where monuments along the National Mall sat shrouded in the afternoon gloom, commuters donned masks that for the first time in years had nothing to do with a pandemic.
"It looks like Mars outside," said Dennis Scannell, the co-owner of a typically bustling but now silent baseball and softball training facility in Syracuse. The city's Air Quality Index — a measure of outdoor pollution — registered 402 late Wednesday morning. Healthy is considered below 50.
In Binghamton, N.Y., the National Weather Service office tweeted about the dimming sky just before 10 a.m. "Sun is no longer visible, everything's orange, the parking lot lights have come on," it read, alongside a photo of the otherworldly scene.
As of early Wednesday, Canadian officials reported more than 400 active fires, with roughly 240 listed as "out of control." The worst-affected province is Quebec, where at least 154 fires have been recorded.
At the current pace, government officials said this week, Canada is on track to experience the worst wildfire season in its recorded history. Already this year, roughly 2,300 wildfires have burned roughly 9.4 million acres, according to government data. In the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, unusually intense blazes this year have scorched more land than in the past 10 years combined.
The source of the gathering gloom is the smoke from a series of wildfires in Canada. It's not new to have fires in Canada but the current blazes are far beyond anything seen in recent decades . . .
The situation is unprecedented but also part of a growing trend of longer, hotter wildfire seasons in both Canada and the United States. The crisis adding fuel to the fire, quite literally, is climate change. . . .
Canada is experiencing what could become their worst wildfire season on record . . . Wildfires are at more than 10 times their normal average so far this year, and in May alone Canada saw more than 6.6 million acres burn – a total almost the size of Massachusetts.
Warm and dry conditions will continue to increase wildfire risk in most of Canada in June and July, according to a wildfire outlook from Canadian officials this week. . . .
The pollution from these particles is at historic levels in some cities along the East Coast. New York City now has the distinction of some of the worst air quality in the world – ranking third at midday Wednesday, just behind Delhi and Dahka – according to IQAir, a Swiss air monitoring company. . . .
Scientists say the particulates from wildfires can be more toxic than from some other sources, since a wildfire burns everything in its path – not just trees and shrubs but also parts of homes, trash, and plastics. . . . Researchers have connected poor air quality from wildfires to increased hospitalizations and premature births. . . .
[T]he area burned by wildfires has doubled in Canada since the 1970s and quadrupled in the western United States in that same time. Longer, dryer summers have erased the concept of a "fire season" and turned it into a "fire year" in some parts of the arid West.
The New York Times published pictures of the Manhattan skyline from throughout the day:
225 here in DC this morning. Last night, my two dogs went outside to play for a while, seemed fine, then came in, hacked and coughed, and threw up.
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