As historic fires have ravaged Canada for several days, an orange fog has engulfed New York City, rendering the air there unbreathable.
The famous Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan “skyline” are shrouded in an unsettling yellow-orange haze. Wildfires in Quebec are darkening New York, 500 miles south, and the east coast of the United States, making the air unbreathable.
“You can’t even see the Statue of Liberty,” alarmed Jack Wright from the East River bank in Brooklyn. This 76-year-old former lawyer claims he “quit smoking 50 years ago,” but says he “coughed” like he used to when he smoked.
Covid masks are reappearing on the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, as is Hugh Hill walking his dog in Central Park, the gigantic green lung of the United States’ economic and cultural capital.
The 43-year-old lawyer says he’s doing everything he can not to breathe in too much of that air, which has the acrid smell characteristic of burned wood and makes his eyes and throat sting.
“I don’t know if it’s psychological or physical, but I know there are benefits to wearing a mask, although of course it can’t prevent everything,” he told AFP.
Worse and worse
Right in the center of Manhattan, the financial and business center of the megalopolis, the atmospheric conditions are getting worse by the hour: a thickening yellow-orange fog around the skyscrapers and a barely breathable air for the office workers rushing to lunch.
Since Tuesday, city and state authorities have stepped up alerts to alert New Yorkers to the sudden and unprecedented impact of these fires in Canada, the intensity and frequency of which are linked to climate change.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader in Washington, said he was “sad that New York City, which traditionally enjoys good air quality, is having one of the worst in the world because of these wildfires in Quebec,” 500 miles north.
It’s even worse in the big, upscale, leafy suburbs north of the Bronx on the Hudson River, where the sky turns yellow-orange-grey and makes your throat ache.
According to state governor Kathy Hochul, the air quality index has dropped from “harmful” to “very harmful” and all school and extra-curricular outdoor activities have ceased. “It’s not the right day to train for the marathon,” warned, with his flair of understatement, the city’s Mayor Eric Adams.
According to data from IQAir.com, which monitors air pollution around the world, the air quality index for New York hit a record 324 on a scale of zero to 500 on Wednesday afternoon. The concentration of PM2.5 microparticles is at a level that is more than ten times higher than World Health Organization standards.