By Melina Walling, Melissa Winder and Trisha Ahmed – Associated Press

CHICAGO — Smoke from wildfires in Canada has engulfed much of the Great Lakes region and parts of the central and eastern United States, dramatically worsening air quality.

Chicago and Detroit were among the three cities with the worst air quality in the world Wednesday morning, according to the monitoring service. iqair.com.

Website airnow.gov The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report showed parts of Illinois, southern Michigan and southern Wisconsin had the worst air quality in the US on Tuesday after- midday, while Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee had air quality considered “very unhealthy”.

[Planeta Tierra: La contaminación del aire puede dañar los huesos de los seres humanos]

Minnesota issued a record 23rd air quality alert, which will be in effect Tuesday through Wednesday evening across much of the state, as smoky skies darken Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has issued a statewide air quality alert. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has also issued an air quality advisory for the state.

In Chicago, officials have urged young people, the elderly and residents with health issues to spend more time indoors.

New York expects air quality in the state to deteriorate this Wednesday and Thursday, Governor Kathy Hochul said.

“As you walked into the zoo…if you looked at the buildings around it, there was a kind of haze,” said Shelly Woinowski, who was visiting Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.

Some daycare centers in the Chicago metro area informed parents that their children would be indoors on Tuesday due to poor air quality, while a youth sports club announced that it had changed its activities to add more indoor time.

[Ahora o nunca: un informe clave de la ONU sobre emergencia climática indica que se agota el tiempo para un futuro habitable]

“As these dangerous conditions continue, the City will continue to provide updates and take prompt action to ensure vulnerable people have the resources they need to protect themselves and their families,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson in a statement.

In the Milwaukee metro area, the Flight for Life Wisconsin air ambulance service was unable to respond to a crash between a motorcycle and a pickup truck because the Federal Aviation Administration requires visibility of two miles (3.2 kilometers) and visibility is reduced to between 0.7 and 1.5 miles (1.2 and 2.4 kilometers) due to hazy skies, according to general manager Leif Erickson.

Fires in northern Quebec and a low-pressure system in the eastern Great Lakes are sending clouds of smoke into northern Michigan and southern Wisconsin and Chicago, said National Meteorologist Bryan Jackson. Weather Service.

Jackson added that a northerly wind will push the smoke further south into Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky later Tuesday and overnight.

[Más de 330 especies de fauna salvaje de todo el mundo están contaminadas con sustancias químicas “permanentes”]

Canada’s Interagency Wildfire Center reported Monday that 29,393 square miles (76,129 square kilometers) of land, including forests, have burned in Canada since January 1. That number surpasses the previous record, set in 1989, of 29,187 square miles (75,596 square kilometers), according to the National Forest Database.

Nationwide, there are currently 490 active fires, of which 255 are considered out of control.