ADDED: "Live Updates: Wildfire Smoke Pushes Air Quality to Dangerous Levels for Millions/Dense smoke from Canadian wildfires is choking a vast stretch of the Northeast and Upper Midwest. Officials encouraged residents, including in New York, to stay indoors" (NYT): "As wildfires rage in Ontario, driving a haze of smoke over New York and other parts of the United States, officials in the Canadian province are bracing for a potential escalation and widespread community evacuations. Roughly 135 active wildfires were burning across northwestern Ontario as of Wednesday night, with more than half a dozen new fires reported late that evening...."
July 16, 2026
In the maroon zone.
ADDED: "Live Updates: Wildfire Smoke Pushes Air Quality to Dangerous Levels for Millions/Dense smoke from Canadian wildfires is choking a vast stretch of the Northeast and Upper Midwest. Officials encouraged residents, including in New York, to stay indoors" (NYT): "As wildfires rage in Ontario, driving a haze of smoke over New York and other parts of the United States, officials in the Canadian province are bracing for a potential escalation and widespread community evacuations. Roughly 135 active wildfires were burning across northwestern Ontario as of Wednesday night, with more than half a dozen new fires reported late that evening...."
Posts
43 comments:
It's another news gimmick. Soon there will be a air quality discomfort index to make the number even bigger.
The air is really bad today. As in, really, really bad. Worst I can remember it, and I don't usually get too bothered by smoke. Last year's 'corn sweat' was unpleasant. This is much worse, at least where I live.
How many years of 'carbon offsets' have been wiped out by one day's worth of fires in Canada?
We are at 735 in Northwest Ohio. You can see and smell the smoke outside but worse, in the house.
Well wapo did tell us that "smoking is back in vogue"...
Haven't gone outside today, but still have smoke taste on my tongue. Hundred year old houses are not air tight.
This has happened repeatedly. We need to put a tariff on Canada so that they fix this problem.
Can't reach any Althouse posts except this one.
The intelligence chiefs are already doing their dirty work.
gad zooks they went nuclear!
The "Maroon" zone? When does it reach the pitch-black-no-sunlight zone? How about when the smoke is so thick that you can't see your phone at all?
Orange skies--and often pretty--fire smoke images from California in 2020:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-09/amazing-photos-of-deep-orange-skies-snowing-ash-as-fire-smoke-swamps-bay-area
Canada follows the California approach to managing their forests - just burn them down.
Also, per hour carbon emissions from the fires equals five years of US emissions.
Sp now we're being coached by the Weather experts into accepting a new 'Index' like the 'Heat Index' that will persuade you that the air is unbreatheable, and we should all be fearful, very very fearful, of what's outside....
'... We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, and an Air Quality Index of 375, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!
We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy....
It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and my respirator and oxygen tank, I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."
Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.'
'...So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, ....... Hack ! Cough ! Cough! Gaahhh ! ....'
That sucks, but is it as bad as the pollution from Trumps July 4th fireworks? Has it killed as many people yet?
Canada has ruined a good portion of our summers the past few years. We are in the pale orange zone. I can taste it rather than smell it.
Oh, gee! Of course climate change has nothing to do with it.
“Toke, toke it up.”
-Tommy Chong
Tell us about Climate Change prior to the industrial revolution, Freder.
There was lots.
The Canadian government under Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney shuts down air conditioning because of alleged global warming, but then deliberately mismanages its woodlands, resulting in massive forest fires that release CO2 into be atmosphere at a rate of hundreds of tons per second. So much for worrying about atmospheric CO2.
Moreover live trees absorb atmospheric CO2 — it’s called photosynthesis, and you can look it up — but burned out stumps are not so good at that.
Use N95-type masks, but with exhaust vents.
Current conditions in my neighborhood:
Temperature 91
Dew Point 71
AQI 348
It's like being tied to a rotisserie on a pellet grill.
Bjorn Lomborg has an Interesting post on this subject. He states:
"Halfway through 2026, the world has burned at record-low levels
"Every continent is below average, and Africa, Americas, and Europe are at record lows
"Media only shows when stuff is burning, leaving us badly informed on climate change"
He provides a link where interested parties can research details. Here is is X post:
"https://x.com/BjornLomborg/status/2077712400220934383"
You’ve heard of DEFCON-1 and thought that was bad?
I give you Maroon-5!
~20mi southeast of Pittsburgh. This is way worse than I've ever experienced. At noon it wasn't noticeable. At 3 it was thick and smelly.
so, tell me why?
WHY is it?
that Canada keeps (appearing to be) having all these troubles with trees?
"Charlie Currie said...
Also, per hour carbon emissions from the fires equals five years of US emissions."
I don't doubt those fires are putting a s**tload of particulates and CO2 into the atmosphere, but where did that estimate come from?
You can use a bong as a air filter if you have one, and why would you not?
I was working in Jakarta in the 90s, when the good General Suharto decided to eradicate the vastly different cultures on the thousands of islands in the archipelago, and homogenize the nation by forcibly transplanting natives onto different islands. They would be given a sack of rice and handtools.
Of course the first thing they did was to set fires to clear the land. And this resulted in a constant smoke haze on Java and elsewhere, so thick that at times you couldn't see across the street. People with respiratory problems were dying, the rest were simply choking. Everyone wore masks. The airports were routinely smoked in, no flying. Since our operations were out on Irian Jaya (1500 miles east), we flew as far as we could, and then were forced to take local ferries the rest of the way. That was some kind of trip, boy. It felt like a Conrad novel.
Now that our love for the Great White North is gone, Canada has this burning, yearning feeling inside her.
Actual CBC headline:
"Republicans blast Canada over wildfire smoke, air quality in northern U.S."
As ever, the story about anything is always "Republicans pounce."
For a place that is largely made of water, Manitoba shouldn't have wildfires ...
'...Oh, gee! Of course climate change has nothing to do with it. ...'
The hottest, most severe climate in modern records occurred in the 1930s, and still holds most of the records today. Correspondingly, forest fire frequency and severity (acres burned) peaked in the mid-30s at 52 million acres burned, and then has declined, to and average less than 10, in the USA. Canada had a bad year in 2023 (23 million acres) and a few other assorted bad years back in the 80s, but is almost always less than 5 million acres.
The 7 year rolling averages show no supporting trend that one could attribute to climate change. In fact the long term trend for the number of fires in both USA and Canada is decreasing, according to the data. You want to share your references that make such claims?
"You want to share your references that make such claims?"
"Share"? You might want to get a roll of toilet paper first.
'...Back in 1992, a review examined how prescribed burns have been a natural and effective forest management tool in Canada and argued for their expanded, science‑based use to reduce fuel loads, support healthy forests, and maintain ecosystem function.
Published in The Forestry Chronicle, the authors show that prescribed burning can be cost‑effective and ecologically compatible with many management objectives. The authors concluded that continued and adaptive use of prescribed fire, integrated with responsible timber harvesting and clearcut‑area treatments, is essential for long‑term forest resilience and should remain a core tool in Canadian forest policy and operations.
Perhaps Canada should revisit this 1992 paper, which shows controlled burns and sound forest management practices are effective in preventing massive wildfires. https://t.co/cSqFailjPt pic.twitter.com/PTpEYeCGd2
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) July 15, 2026...'
But yeah, 'climate change'.
*Oh, gee! Of course climate change has nothing to do with it.*
Oh, gee! Of course shitty forest management practices have nothing to do with it.
BTW, the Earth's climate has been changing for 4.6 billion years. STFU and deal with it.
It was 478 at 7 a.m. where I live in Dodge County. It looked like fog and smelled like campfire smoke was hitting my face. The dog was allowed to take only very quick trips outside.
"so, tell me why?
WHY is it?
that Canada keeps (appearing to be) having all these troubles with trees?"
We just had two days of mid-day feeling like a spooky, orange-tinted dusk here in Massachusetts thanks to this. My recollection from the ones about three years ago (that produced a similar haze) was that Canada deliberately refuses to attempt to control or fight forest fires unless there are homes/businesses in relatively immediate danger.
I looked up the numbers. Canada's last big wildfire season was in 2023. Canada emitted 2.4 to 3.28 Gigatons of carbon dioxide.
In one year, the entire US power grid emitted 1.25 Gigatons.
The entire US emits 4.8 to 5.0 Gigatons.
AQI near 600 reported near my niece’s house just west of Chicago
A lot of smoke was put into the air in the period 1939-1945 and yet this did not produce global warming in the 1950s and 1960s.
Google AI overview:
During the 1991 Gulf War, scientist Carl Sagan warned that Saddam Hussein's intentional torching of hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells would cause a global environmental disaster. He predicted that millions of tons of thick black smoke would block out the sun, severely disrupt the climate, and destroy crops across the Northern Hemisphere.
Sagan's doomsday predictions failed to happen. While the fires caused a massive local and regional crisis in Kuwait, the smoke did not rise high enough into the atmosphere (the stratosphere) to spread around the globe. The smoke eventually rained out of the sky.
Enigma said...
“Orange skies--and often pretty--fire smoke images from California in 2020:
'https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-09/amazing-photos-of-deep-orange-skies-snowing-ash-as-fire-smoke-swamps-bay-area’ ”
7/16/26, 2:06 PM
My sister texted me yesterday that even into south-central MA the smoke was horrific and the sky was a sickly yellow. The forecast was to be in the 90s but the smoke was doing a fine job keeping the temps a good deal lower. Likely a benefit since they were burrowed into the house.
I remember those days vividly. Even near the beach the intense smoke was chokingly thick and the ash layering everything was wild. I recall walking outside to the sidewalk around lunchtime and it was dim enough that the streetlights were on with ash swirling in the wind.
I guess it’s the obligatory “What a Maroon!” Yuck Yuck Yuck.
At least with the fires I can’t smell all the pot smoke now.
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