New York City’s air is officially hazardous to breathe as of late Wednesday afternoon — due to Canadian wildfires that have brought dangerous smoke to the New York metro area.
Pollution concentrations at this level constitute a “health emergency,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Officials in New York and New Jersey have issued air quality warnings and asked residents to refrain from unnecessary outdoor activities.
Masks and air purifiers can help protect people from some of the pollution’s health effects, which include coughing, eye irritation and shortness of breath. If you’re using an air conditioner, be sure to close the fresh air intake to prevent outdoor air from entering your home, the city’s Emergency Management Commissioner Zachary Iscol recommended on Wednesday. People with conditions like asthma should also be extra careful about their exposure.
The situation is changing from hour to hour, so check the air quality in your area before going outside. Gothamist has compiled some local stats that will update in real time.
As of Wednesday evening, the Northeast region had the worst air quality in the nation, according to the AirNow data tracker from the Environmental Protection Agency.
City-run air monitors scattered around Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx show that air pollution spiked on Tuesday evening, then cooled off again before skyrocketing to new heights on Wednesday afternoon. The readings dwarfed air pollution figures from last week, when fires in Nova Scotia also affected local air quality. Róisín Commane, an assistant professor of earth and environmental science at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, cautioned that the monitor readings can be unreliable at very high pollutant concentrations.
“I’m not sure there’s many things that can measure well when the numbers are this high,” she said. “But once it’s above a certain amount, it’s toxic to people. So whether it’s 350 or 355 doesn’t really matter if you have to breathe it.”
The Canadian smoke may not be typical, but we’re also at risk of local fires this summer, Commane added.
“We had so little moisture in the springtime that our soils are exceedingly dry right now,” she said. “Fires could break out closer to home.”
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