Wildfires in Canada have alarms ringing in US

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Wildfires in Canada have alarms ringing in US

The heaviest cluster is in northwestern Ontario, where smoke has blanketed Thunder Bay and Toronto, while thinner plumes have drifted over the Great Lakes and into New York, tinting sunrises and sunsets red.

3 min readJul 17, 2026 11:12 AM IST

First published on: Jul 17, 2026 at 11:12 AM IST

The Detroit city skyline is obscured during poor air quality due to smoke from Canadian wildfires. (Photo: AP)

Smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning across Canada has drifted deep into the United States, triggering hazardous air quality alerts from the Upper Midwest through the Great Lakes and into the northeast. Here’s what’s driving it and who’s affected.

Canada currently has 858 active wildfires, including 30 that ignited Thursday alone, with the vast majority burning out of control, according to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System. The heaviest cluster is in northwestern Ontario, where smoke has blanketed Thunder Bay and Toronto, while thinner plumes have drifted over the Great Lakes and into New York, tinting sunrises and sunsets red.

One fire in northern Ontario forced residents of local First Nations communities to flee, with some escaping by boat; a local chief described her community as having been reduced to ashes.

Which US cities are hit hardest

Detroit currently has the worst air quality of any city in the world, according to Swiss tracker IQAir, followed by Minneapolis, Chicago, and Toronto. Air quality is rated “hazardous” in parts of Michigan and Minnesota, where residents are being urged to stay indoors, and “very unhealthy” in western New York, with the New York City area rated “unhealthy.”

New York has expanded its heat emergency measures and activated air quality protocols, opening cooling centers and distributing KN95 masks citywide. Forecasters expect northwesterly winds to keep pushing smoke into the northern US through the weekend, raising concern it could reach New Jersey in time for Sunday’s World Cup final.

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Why does this keep happening, and who’s responding

Wildfires are a natural part of Canada’s boreal forest cycle, but researchers say they’ve grown more frequent since 2015 amid extreme climate warming and drier conditions. Fire activity has also shifted eastward in recent years, moving from western Canada toward Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces closer to major population centres like Toronto and New York which has stretched Canadian firefighting resources thin.

Michigan Republican lawmakers wrote an open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney criticizing the country’s wildfire management for a third consecutive year, while the US ambassador to Canada struck a more conciliatory tone, praising firefighting efforts on both sides.

Carney responded that both countries share responsibility for climate change and said his government remains in close contact with affected provinces, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford defended his government’s response, noting more than 150 fire crews are deployed and pledging to spend whatever is necessary to fight the blazes.

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