Canada: Quebec wildfire smoke reaches major US cities

Quebec has been plagued with some 160 wildfires, making it the latest hotspot in Canada, where wildfires have been eating up swathes of land in different locations for weeks.

Some 110 of the fires were deemed out of control, with evacuations ongoing in northern Quebec's largest town.

The western Abitibi-Temiscamingue region, some 650 kilometers (400 miles) north of Montreal was hit the hardest.

Francois Bonnardel, Quebec's public safety minister, said the situation was "never seen" before in the province. He added that a large number of these fires were sparked by human carelessness.

Bonnardel noted that unlike in western Canada, Quebec is not historically prone to this scale of wildfire, "but right now everything is on fire."

Smog engulfs US cities

Smoke from the wildfires traveled hundreds of miles, as far away as New York City and New England. The Big Apple, for one, is shrouded in record-breaking smog with several residents complaining of poor visibility and irritation in the eyes.

"It smells like someone is doing a barbecue," said Nicha Suaittiyanon, a 30-year-old tourist in New York from Thailand, who complained of watery and itchy eyes.

A 43-year-old lawyer Hugh Hill said his throat had been stringing from the haze.

 AirNow, an air quality monitor, said New York City's Air Quality Index (AQI) reached a hazardous level of 413 at 5:00 p.m., on a scale of up to 500. NASA scientist Ryan Stauffer told the AFP news agency that New York had broken its previous record, set 21 years ago. 

Cities along the US east coast have issued air quality alerts as a result.

The US Federal Aviation Administration announced the slowing and halting of some flights into the New York City area due to reduced visibility.

The FAA said flights from the upper Midwest and East Coast bound for New York's LaGuardia airport have been paused, while flights to Newark Liberty International Airport have been slowed.

Public schools in New York City have suspended all outdoor activities.

The situation has also forced sports postponements in Major League Baseball, the Women's NBA and the National Women's Soccer League. In music, organizers canceled the opening night of a concert series in Brooklyn.

The White House called the smog an "alarming example of the ways in which the climate crisis is disturbing our lives," on Wednesday. 

How have the wildfires progressed?

Authorities ordered some 7,500 residents of Quebec's remote region of Chibougamau to evacuate.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault told reporters in Sept-Iles that authorities were monitoring the situation "from hour to hour." He added that the situation in several parts of the province remained "worrying," particularly singling out the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region.

In the northern Sept-Iles city, some 4,400 previously evacuated citizens were allowed to return home, following rainfall which helped stall the blaze.

"We are very, very happy to see rain," Legault told a news conference. But further north, he added, there's "a huge fire which will take weeks to extinguish completely, so we must remain cautious."

Canadia seeks help from abroad 

Canada also intensified calls for support, as over 480 wilderness firefighters struggle to battle the wildfires on the ground. Legault said Quebec currently had the capacity to fight just around 30 of its some 160 fires.

"When I talk to the premiers of other provinces, they have their hands full," Legault said. Some 413 fires were reportedly burning across the country on Monday morning.

Nearly 1,000 firefighters arrived from Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and the US to assist the Canadian authorities, with some 200 more expected to arrive from France and the US.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he spoke with US President Joe Biden by phone on Wednesday to thank him for "critical support" in tackling the blazes. 

"We're seeing more and more of these fires because of climate change. These fires are affecting everyday routines, lives and livelihoods, and our air quality," Trudeau said on Twitter. 

Western Canada has been repeatedly struck by climate change-induced extreme weather events in recent years, including floods, mudslides, devastating forest fires that wiped out entire towns, and record-breaking summer temperatures that claimed over 500 lives in 2021.

Earlier in May, wildfires in Alberta burned nearly one million hectares of forests and grasslands, displacing 30,000 individuals at one point. However, wildfires in the eastern parts of the country caused more alarm, with unprecedented wildfires in Nova Scotia's Halifax prompting the mandatory evacuation of thousands of citizens.

rmt/jcg (AFP, AP)