Residents of the northeastern United States were breathing easier Friday as smoke from the Canadian fires gradually dissipated after covering several cities this week.
In New York and Washington, air quality was classified as “moderate” by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
In the US capital, the sky was blue again on Friday morning, but, as a precaution, children in the city’s public schools were still prohibited from spending recess outdoors.
Air quality improved after winds blowing over the Canadian province of Quebec, where the fires are raging, changed direction, he told AFP. Ryan Stauffer, a NASA scientist specializing in air pollution.
Evacuations in Western Canada
Meanwhile, Canadian authorities evacuated 2,400 people on Friday from the town of Tumbler Ridge, in the west of the country, due to the threat of a forest fireone of more than 400 that are active across Canada.
The authorities in the province of British Columbia, on the Pacific coast, warned that the flames are three kilometers from Tumbler Ridge, about 1,100 kilometers north of the city of Vancouver, which has forced the evacuation of the entire population.
He tumbler ridge fire It is one of 73 that are active this Friday in British Columbia, a province that like the rest of the country is experiencing unusually dry conditions that have caused one of the worst waves of fires in modern Canadian history.
Meanwhile, in the east of the country, where some 200 forest fires, The province of Quebec received a contingent of 100 French firefighters on Friday to help fight the flames of 140 active fires.
Canada is suffering its worst start to the wildfire season, with 2,392 fires so far this year and 4.4 million hectares burned, according to the Canadian Inter-Agency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC), about 15 times the annual average for the last decade.
Keep reading:
• The disturbing images of the orange sky of New York due to the cloud of smoke coming from Canada
• Videos showed the “doomsday scenario” caused by the smoke that invades the northeast of the US.
• The map showing the smoke cloud that covers North America and generates a health alert for tens of millions of people.
