Why Is the Air Quality Bad Today? Canada Wildfire Smoke Explained
The Boston Skyline along the Charles River in the yellow haze caused by wildfires in Canada around noon on Wednesday. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Why is the air quality bad today across so much of the United States? If the sky outside your window looks hazy, yellow, or unusually dim, the answer almost certainly traces back to Canada, where hundreds of wildfires are currently burning and sending thick smoke deep into American skies. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, there are currently 836 active wildfires burning across the country, with 194 classified as completely out of control, concentrated heavily in the Northwest Territories, Ontario, and Quebec. That smoke has now triggered air quality alerts across at least 19 U.S. states, from the Great Lakes region through the N...