Toronto had the worst air quality of any major city in the world on Wednesday, the Swiss firm IQAir said, as Canadian authorities urged people to stay indoors.<\/p>\n
Toronto edged out New Delhi and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa as wildfire smoke turned the skies a hazy yellowish-grey in Canada’s largest city.<\/p>\n
“The biggest contributor to Toronto’s spike in air pollution right now is wildfires, though the higher than average temperatures are also playing a role,” Armen Araradian of IQAir told AFP.<\/p>\n
While this year’s wildfire season has been fairly muted compared to the devastation caused in recent years, there are more than 800 active fires nationwide.<\/p>\n
Smoke from blazes in northwestern Ontario has filtered down to Toronto, the provincial capital.<\/p>\n
City officials have closed pools, cancelled summer camp programs and closed the official FIFA Fan Festival ahead of Wednesday’s semi-final match between England and Argentina.<\/p>\n
Montreal saw a similar, though less severe impact from wildfires on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Smoke from the wildfires also worsened air quality across the border in the United States, with Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire particularly impacted.<\/p>\n
New Yorkers were warned by state authorities that they “may see visible smoke and hazy skies across the state and spikes in smoke-related pollution.”<\/p>\n
Canadians are enduring potentially hazardous air as a record-smashing North American heat wave persists.<\/p>\n
Extreme heat and humidity in the Mountain West spilled over to the densely populated East Coast of the United States and Ontario.<\/p>\n
The heat in Ontario is expected to ease by the weekend, but officials have warned of persistent risk from wildfires through the remaining summer months.<\/p>\n
So far, Canadian wildfires have scorched 1.9 million hectares this year, an area nearly the size of Slovenia.<\/p>\n
That damage remains far off the pace of 2023, Canada’s worst wildfire season on record, when nearly 18 million hectares burned in the country.<\/p>\n
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