STANTON, N.D. — Thick smoke from Canadian wildfires is now pushing across the border into America’s northern tier states, blanketing several states in a milky orange-tinged haze and sending air quality to hazardous levels in a few areas.
Around 150 wildfires are burning across northern Alberta and British Columbia, pouring acrid smoke across western Canada that is carrying south into the United States along the upper-level winds. Smoke has reached into the Pacific Northwest, northern Plains and even into the Mississippi Valley.
HOW DO WILDFIRES AND THEIR SMOKE EXACERBATE MEDICAL CONDITIONS?
But the northern Rockies and Northern Plains are taking the brunt of the smoke on the American side of the border Thursday.
While the smoke has remained elevated at several thousand feet and has not posed a significant air quality threat on the surface for most of the affected areas, smoke has been pushed near the ground near the border from Eastern Washington into Minnesota, degrading air quality to unhealthy, or even hazardous levels in some cities in North and South Dakota. Mercer County, North Dakota, reported an air quality index of 660 Wednesday evening, well above the hazardous threshold of 400.
THE AIR QUALITY INDEX EXPLAINED
Air quality reached hazardous levels in Pierre and the Badlands of South Dakota, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow air quality monitor. Several air quality readings in the “Very Unhealthy” range were spread across North Dakota into eastern Montana and northern South Dakota.
Air Quality Alerts are posted across the entire state of Montana, eastern portions of Washington, parts of the Dakotas and into northern Minnesota Thursday.
Officials are urging residents in those areas to limit outdoor activity, especially those sensitive to air quality, such as children, the elderly and those with heart or respiratory ailments. Or in the case of very healthy or hazardous air quality, officials urge everyone to avoid all outdoor activity.
SIGNS THAT POOR AIR QUALITY COULD BE AFFECTING YOUR PET
Visibility may drop as low as a quarter mile in areas of Montana and the Dakotas, making for hazardous driving conditions.
Forecasts show improving conditions across the northern tier on Friday into the weekend as the smoke is carried east, though a period of thick smoke is forecast to cross the northern Great Lakes later Thursday into Friday.