AP Photo/Noah Berger
- Smoke from fires on the US West Coast and in Canada has traveled into the atmosphere and drifted east.
- The smoke has reached the East Coast, and has affected the Air Quality Index in a number of states.
- The smoke is also brining places prettier sunsets and hazy skies.
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Smoke from wildfires across the Western US and Canada has reached the upper Midwest and the East Coast, causing air quality issues and hazy skies as far away as New York and Massachusetts.
The smoke, traveling high up into the atmosphere from several fires, has drifted into a number of states, including Wisconsin, Minnesota, parts of Indiana and Pennsylvania, as well as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, according to graphics shared by the National Weather Service on Twitter.
In parts of New York, Idaho, Montana, Ohio, and elsewhere, Air Quality Index readings have been recorded at unhealthy levels this week thanks to the wildfires, including Oregon's Bootleg Fire, air resource adviser Margaret Key told Reuters.
"Wildfire smoke exposure also increases susceptibility to respiratory infections including COVID, increases severity of such infections, and makes recovery more difficult," Key told Reuters.
-National Weather Service (@NWS) July 20, 2021
But along with air quality issues, the smoke will also bring "hazy skies & spectacular sunsets for many," the NWS said.
"Sunsets look prettier, redder, more colorful," NWS meteorologist Bob Orevec of the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, told Reuters.
Among the wildfires burning on the West Coast is the Bootleg Fire, which has scorched nearly 400,000 acres and is only 30% contained by firefighters. The massive blaze has produced its own weather patterns and can even be seen from space.