Smoke from wildfires in the west caused hazy skies as air quality index surged to 157 in Manhattan, well above threshold of 100
New York City air quality was among the worst in the world as cities across the eastern US were shrouded in smoke from wildfires raging several thousand miles away on the country’s west coast.
State officials in New York advised vulnerable people, such as those with asthma and heart disease, to avoid strenuous outdoor activity as air pollution soared to eclipse Lima in Peru and Kolkata in India to be ranked as the worst in the world on Tuesday.
Smoke from more than 80 major wildfires burning in the US west has caused hazy skies and plunging air quality in eastern American and Canadian cities including Philadelphia, Washington DC, Pittsburgh and Toronto, as well as New York, causing fiery sunrises and even bathing the moon in an unusual red tinge on Tuesday night.
On Wednesday morning, the air quality index surged to 157 in Manhattan, well above the threshold of 100 where health is considered to be threatened. Vulnerable people include pregnant women and the elderly, although even healthy people outside these groups can experience breathing difficulty, throat irritation and runny eyes when exposed to air this bad.
I didn't think about it when I took sunset photos at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon last month, but my photos show extraordinarily oranges in the sky. The colors were almost certainly caused by the fires out West. (On this trip, we never saw any fires burning, but the road we took from Flagstaff to the South Rim had only opened up a few days before we drove it because of a large fire.)