NYC tells vulnerable residents to mask up as wildfire smoke engulfs city

[riversedge]

Source: wash post




By Dan Diamond Updated June 7, 2023 at 1:21 a.m. EDT|Published June 7, 2023 at 12:18 a.m. EDT
The haze and smell of smoke from the Canadian wildfires hung heavy over New York, raising concerns about air quality June 6. (Video: Julie Yoon, Joyce Koh/The Washington Post)
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New York City officials on Tuesday night urged at-risk residents to wear high-quality masks outdoors as smoke blankets the city.

“If you are an older adult or have heart or breathing problems and need to be outside, wear a high-quality mask (e.g. N95 or KN95),” the office of Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement late Tuesday. The city also urged New Yorkers to stay indoors when possible.

“Currently, we are taking precautions out of an abundance of caution to protect New Yorkers’ health until we are able to get a better sense of future air quality reports,” Adams said.


..........Adams and other officials are set to give a news conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday outlining their safety recommendations. Smoke from Canadian fires is expected to engulf the city for several days, with officials warning that while conditions could improve Wednesday morning, they are expected to worsen by the afternoon and evening................

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/07/nyc-mask-guidance-air-quality-canada-wildfire/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjU3MTQ1OTY4IiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY4NjExMDQwMCwiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY4NzQwNjM5OSwiaWF0IjoxNjg2MTEwNDAwLCJqdGkiOiJlNzkzZWY4ZC02NWZhLTQxNDItOTYyZC1iNTNkYjRmOTM1YmYiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vd2VhdGhlci8yMDIzLzA2LzA3L255Yy1tYXNrLWd1aWRhbmNlLWFpci1xdWFsaXR5LWNhbmFkYS13aWxkZmlyZS8ifQ.1IJdYK-47AaLjYjAjtWBT5yK9Rt6owhO-Bq0lWf3nVo

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It is going to be LONNNNNNNNNNNNNNG summer I think.

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[Alexander Of Assyria]

1. Plastics and electronics in the vast forests of Quebec? Twitter is sooo educational!??

Please don’t use Twitter as a source for anything that matters. Not your health anyway!

Suddenly Twitter denizens are Canadian forrest fire experts while they not busy being far far away war experts…..the list of experts never ends!

Live particulate map, toggle particulate switch,

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/particulates/surface/level/overlay=pm2.5/orthographic

[Blues Heron]

2. Structures have been involved in some of the fires - full of toxic stuff

You dont want to breath that shit, period. Mask up and be safe!

[Alexander Of Assyria]

3. Compared to the vast amounts of burnt wood carbon...the remote and few structures is nothing.

Last edited Wed Jun 7, 2023, 09:06 AM - Edit history (1)

Look at a map of the vast empty territory of northern Quebec…of what structures does the Twitter expert speak??

Americans general purpose twittering from New York aren’t the experts. Neither am I but I can read a map!

[Blues Heron]

4. lol! Not taking any chances with that toxic shit, neither should anybody

[kadaholo]

5. The New Normal

Unfortunately, occurrences like this will become the new normal with climate change.

"As of Tuesday, there were about 150 forest fires, with the vast majority of them burning out of control. SOPFEU can handle about 30 at a time." "The fight is far from over," said Sept-Îles Mayor Steeve Beaupré. "We will unfortunately have to learn to live with the risk, since a fire of this magnitude doesn't die easily."


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/sept-iles-evacuation-order-lifted-1.6866857

[roamer65]

6. Life at 523 ppm CO2e and rising.

Get used to it.

It’s going to get worse.

[IronLionZion]

7. Conservative anti-maskers will breathe deep to own the libs

because of freedom to breathe smoke.

N95 masks are plentiful these days if DUers are looking.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Debunk standard talking point re smoke / masks / covid:

magats will tell you that "you can smell the smoke so they don't work".

They say that because they are too stupid to know that they are smelling the gases, but the smoke particles do the most damage.

So reply "You smell the gases but the smoke is blocked".

[Montauk6]

22. Give 'em what they wish for: call 'em the GOD Party

Gullible Obnoxious Deniers

[RevBrotherThomas]

8. I live on Long Island

Yesterday evening we had an uncharacteristically intense thunderstorm through the haze, complete with hail. Afterwards everything smelled like a wet ashtray.

[Sancho]

9. Really glad that Florida is so far away from Canada...

...wearing a mask down here is a violation of some law or another.

(we need a mask emoticon)

[ancianita]

10. New Yorkers know what to do. I'm wondering, though,

how many forest fire lookout towers Canada's provinces have, since it has one of the largest, if not the largest continuous forest in the world.

On cursory, quick look, Alberta has 127 fire lookout towers, but Quebec only one? Maybe two?
https://www.firelookout.org/worldwide-lookout-library.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Also bush pilots, indigenous communities, and satelites. Canadians know what to do. . . . nt

[ancianita]

13. Ah! I see. Thanks.

I suppose those notice lightning strikes right away and deal with them asap? Asking because I've only heard about the use of water/chemical bombs.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Pics of dozens of Quebec towers. NYers are not the only intelligent people

Take a look:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=quebec+fire+lookout+stations&iax=images&ia=images

[ancianita]

19. Don't get me wrong; I wasn't implying any comparison at all. Just one thought following another.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

25. It's fine. You're cool. . . . nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Some history of US fire lookout towers

The heyday of fire lookout towers was from 1930 through 1950. During World War II, the Aircraft Warning Service was established, operating from mid-1941 to mid-1944. Fire lookouts were assigned additional duty as Enemy Aircraft Spotters, especially on the West Coast of the United States.

From the 1960s through the 1990s the towers took a back seat to new technology, aircraft, and improvements in radios. The promise of space satellite fire detection and modern cell phones tried to compete with the remaining fire lookout towers, but in several environments, the technology failed.

Fires detected from space are already too large to make accurate assessments for control. Cell phones in wilderness areas still suffer from lack of signal. Today, some fire lookout towers remain in service, because having human eyes being able to detect smoke and call in the fire report allows fire management officials to decide early how the fire is to be managed. The more modern policy is to "manage fire", not simply to suppress it. Fire lookout towers provide a reduction in time of fire detection to time of fire management assessment.

Idaho had the most known lookout sites (966);[5] 196 of them still exist, with roughly 60 staffed each summer. Kansas is the only U.S. state that has never had a lookout.[6]

A number of fire lookout tower stations, including many in New York State near the Adirondack Forest Preserve and Catskill Park, have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[7][8]

[IronLionZion]

17. They have jobs posted if you want to apply

but technology has largely replaced the need for humans to stay out there in remote lookout towers.

[ancianita]

18. Actually I looked and there's only one available in Quebec. I meant to compliment

New Yorkers, and didn't mean any comparison at all when wondering about Quebec forest fire lookouts. Now that I know they use tech more than towers, I assume they prevent fires. I'll just keep checking for further news.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

24. "prevent fires" -- these days it doesn't work like that. And towers detect not prevent

Once a tower or other system detects a fire, it is too late to prevent it.

These days it has been realized that total fire suppression leads to monster fires. So the modern thing in North America and some other places is to allow for a certain amount of burn and to of course protect human life and structures and infrastructure.

Part of the reason for the huge number and size of fires these days is because decades of fire suppression have created a huge fuel load in forests.

But the biggest reason is global warming. So we get unusual droughts like April and May which create the conditions for lots of fire. Plus, global warming is heating up Canada's sub-Arctic and Arctic faster than the rest of the world. Canada has a heavy burden heating buildings in winter and huge distances affecting transportation but Canada is getting more warming than other places.

I'm very sorry about the smoke problems the US is experiencing now, but in the past the wind has blown the other way too.

[Bayard]

14. I have a friend in Vermont

That is having to evacuate his family and all animals from his farm because they are all having some form of respiratory distress.

[HariSeldon]

20. Maybe if the fires impact bank CEOs and members of Congress...

...perhaps steps will actually be taken and money allocated to address wildfire control. Also, Democrats -- taken as a whole -- have no political beef with wearing the masks that will protect them from some of the health impacts of the smoke. Will we see Republicans claiming that Democrats orchestrated the Canadian wildfires to kill off Republican voters? Only time will tell.

[patphil]

21. My wife and I live about 60 miles above NYC, on the west side of the Hudson River.

Air quality has been dangerously bad for the last 2 days. Not only can we see a visible haze against a backdrop of trees only about 100 feet away, but we can smell, and even taste the smoke.
It's as if there was a fire just a couple miles away, not 500 to 1000 miles away.
On the Weather Channel, I saw a map of the fires in eastern Canada...several dozen; possibly 100.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

28. Sorry about the smoke, take care. Over 100 fires in Quebec, 416 fires in Canada, 200+ out of control

[patphil]

31. Central air rules!

[meow2u3]

23. I haven't seen such smog since I was a kid

I remember the day my mom wouldn't let us go out and play because it was hazy to the point where we could hardly see the sun. Those were the day we had to play inside.

I grew up in New York during the midst of the nasty pollution and hazy skies on a daily basis. Now I live in Pennsylvania and we have the same thick haze I grew up enduring. I have to go out wearing the same N95 masks I had during the pandemic. That, or damaged lungs.

[Warpy]

26. I read in the WaPo that it's the worst air quality on the planet right now

NYC air is pretty nasty under normal circumstances. I can't imagine trying to work there now.

Masks, which most people have left over from Covid, can filter out the larger particulates. They do help a little. It's the fine stuff that does the damage, though.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

27. That would be Ottawa, the nation's capital, two days in a row

Ottawa is getting northern winds bringing Quebec smoke south and western winds bringing Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario smoke east.

I'm sorry about the poor air quality. I do remember how travelling in Ontario in the 80s we had a health episode due to bad air quality from the US manufacturing pollution in the Chicago-Detroit-Cleveland-Pittsburgh belt.

Hope that any distress due to impaired breathing is minimized by appropriate measures. Sorry again about being the source.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

29. Canadian smoke, American acid rain...things equalize over time!

[Polybius]

30. It's the worst I've ever seen

By far.