The airflow once again brought a large concentration of smoke into the Great Lakes region, so alerts and warnings were issued in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. In the big cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, smog is on the streets again, and in Chicago the Environmental Protection Agency has classified air quality in the “unhealthy” category, which means a fine particulate matter content value of up to 200 on a scale of 500.
Chicago’s leadership has asked residents to keep children, the elderly and people with chronic illnesses at home if possible. According to the meteorological forecast, the smoke-containing air will continue to spread towards the states of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky on Tuesday night.
There are currently about 400 wildfires in the country, Canadian authorities said, about half of which are not under firefighters’ control. According to Monday’s summary, more than 76.1 thousand square kilometers of forests have burned in Canada so far this year, which already exceeds the 1989 record of 75.6 thousand square kilometers.
Two weeks ago, due to weather conditions, almost the entire eastern part of the United States was covered in smoke from low-altitude wildfires in Canada, prompting authorities to issue the highest level air quality alert for New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, among others.
Cover image illustration Source: Getty Images
