Canada has officially marked its worst wildfire season on record as hundreds of fires have scorched 29,000 square miles — sending an unprecedented blast of smoke throughout the US and across the Atlantic to Europe.
As of Thursday afternoon, 503 active fires burned across Canada, including 259 deemed out of control, according to data from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
The powerful fires have burned more than 8.1 million hectares, or around 20 million acres, across the country.
The acreage burned so far this year has surpassed the amount of land burned in 1989, which previously held the record, according to the country’s National Forestry Database.
It also surpasses the combined area burned in 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2022, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
Carbon emissions from the damaging blazes have reached as far as Europe, where its haze was so high up in the atmosphere it was visible from space.
The wildfires this year have released a historic 160 million tonnes of carbon — the largest Canada has seen since monitoring began in 2003, and have surpassed the record set in 2014 of 140 million tonnes.
The total amount of carbon released this year is roughly equivalent to Indonesia’s annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels — causing significant alarm for scientists over what Canada’s fires may do to the air we breathe.
While Canada is still experiencing unusually warm and dry conditions, officials say there is still no end in sight, as the country’s wildfire season typically peaks in late July or August.
Smoke from Canada’s historic fires cloaked several major US cities earlier this month, including the Big Apple, which was blanketed with an apocalyptic orange haze as air quality levels became “unhealthy” at the start of the month.
This week air quality alerts have been issued in cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis and Detroit, though the thick orange smoke has been spotted as far east as Pittsburgh.
More than 11 million people were placed under air quality alerts throughout the Midwest on Wednesday.
By Thursday the smoke stretched through the southeast as poor air quality levels shifted, with more than 120 million Americans under air quality alerts from Iowa to Massachusetts down through the Carolinas and Georgia.
Some of the poorest air quality index readings were reported in Northeast Ohio, where several communities had an AQI value above 300.
Officials in New York warned that air quality levels could reach poor values on Thursday, but the FOX Forecast Center said the invasion of smoke would not be as extensive as when the Big Apple set records earlier in the month.
Forecasters predict a series of frontal boundaries will limit the extent of the smoke and haze through the weekend and into July 4 holiday.
With Post wires.
