WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th June, 2023) The US National Weather Service (NWS) issued on Friday air quality alerts covering large portions of the US East Coast and Midwest that continue to be affected by smoke from Canada's wildfires.
"Air Quality alerts over parts of the Midwest, Great Lakes, central Appalachians, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic," the NWS said in a statement.
The smoke from wildfires in Canada would continue impacting portions of the US northeast over the next few days, it added.
"However, air quality is expected to slowly improve due to a combination of thunderstorm activity and dispersion of the smoke as we head into the weekend," the statement said.
The air quality monitoring service IQAir said that the air quality index in New York City is equal to 161, which is qualified as "unhealthy" for the general population. In two other American cities, Washington, DC and Chicago, this level exceeds 100 or remains unhealthy for sensitive groups of people.
Wildfires in Canada have already burnt 5.3 million hectares of forest land, an area three times the size of Lake Ontario, the country's emergency ministry said earlier this month. The wildfires have also prompted tens of thousands of evacuations from affected areas.
