CHICAG.- EThe smoke from the forest fires burning in Canada it is creating haze sheets and raising air quality concerns throughout the Great Lakes region and in parts of the central and eastern United States.
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) AirNow.gov website showed that parts of Illinois, southern Michigan and southern Wisconsin had the worst air quality in the United States on Tuesday afternoon, while Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee had air quality considered “very unhealthy.”
A record 23rd air quality alert has been issued in Minnesota and will be in effect Tuesday through late Wednesday across much of the state as smoky skies darken the Minneapolis and St. Paul skylines. . The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy issued a statewide air quality alert. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has also issued an air quality advisory for the state.
In Chicago, authorities urged young, old and residents with health problems to spend more time indoors.
“Going into the zoo … if you looked at the buildings around it, there was kind of a haze,” said Shelly Woinowski, who was visiting Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.
Some daycare centers in the Chicago metropolitan area have informed parents that their children will be indoors Tuesday due to poor air quality, while a youth sports club announced that it has modified its activities to add more time indoors.
“As these unsafe conditions continue, the City will continue to provide updates and take swift action to ensure vulnerable individuals have the resources they need to protect themselves and their families,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement.
In the Milwaukee metropolitan area, Flight for Life Wisconsin’s air ambulance service was unable to respond to an accident between a motorcycle and a pickup truck because the Federal Aviation Administration requires visibility of 2 miles (3.2 kilometers), and the Visibility was reduced to between 1.2 and 2.4 kilometers (0.7 and 1.5 miles) due to hazy skies, chief executive Leif Erickson said.
Fires in northern Quebec and a low pressure system in the eastern Great Lakes are sending clouds of smoke across northern Michigan, and across southern Wisconsin and Chicago, said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Jackson added that a northerly wind would push the smoke farther south into Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky later Tuesday and overnight.
The Canadian Inter-Agency Wildland Fire Center reported Monday that 76,129 square kilometers (29,393 square miles) of land, including forests, have burned in Canada since January 1. This number surpasses the previous record, set in 1989, of 75,596 square kilometers (29,187 square miles) according to the National Forest Database.
Nationwide there are currently 490 active fires, of which 255 are considered out of control.
FUENTE: With information from AP
