Wildfire Smoke Threatens to Wipe Out Decades of Air Pollution Progress
New York and Chicago saw more dangerous air days in June and July than in the past 23 years of US data.
A hazy New York skyline as smoke migrated from Canada’s wildfires on June 7. New York City saw more dangerous air days this past June and July than in the same months for the past two decades.
Photographer: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
The US is on track to experience its worst year for smoke exposure in decades, after wildfires in Canada sent toxic plumes drifting across the border to the Midwest and the East Coast earlier this summer.
In June and July, New York and Chicago saw more “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” air quality days for fine particle pollution (PM2.5) than in the same months every year since the Environmental Protection Agency began tracking PM2.5 nationally in 2000, a Bloomberg CityLab analysis of federal data found. In Washington, DC, the number of “very unhealthy” days reached the highest in over a decade.