Apparent smoke from the wildfires in Canada created a haze over the Tonawanda Creek on Friday morning. Photo by Howard Owens.
So this is what life has come to for much of upstate New York: checking the air quality reports every couple of days and having a good scientific expert on speed dial.
At least that’s how it is for The Batavian, with air levels reaching up past 150 for Western New York the last few days, signaling a red zone of “unhealthy.”
While it is tempting to set aside these readings and the scale of pretty colors, from green (good) up to a deep burgundy (hazardous), don’t do it, says Derek Mallia, assistant professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah.
“Like the last event, the smoke event we are seeing is pretty significant, so it totally matters,” he said in response to The Batavian’s questions Thursday. “The best thing to do here is to limit outdoor exposure, especially if you are part of a sensitive group. If that is not possible, then wearing an N95 mask is your next best bet. Like the last event, it looks like fires from Canada are contributing to the really bad air quality you are observing. These fires are burning fast, and there is a lot of fire activity across most portions of Canada right now. Unfortunately, your winds are more out of the north as of late, which is bringing smoke from fires to the north, down across New York.”
It's really tough to forecast out beyond this week, he said, since the smoke forecast models only go out for two days.
“My guess is you could see intermittent smoke in the area over the next week or two since I do see days beyond June where there are northerly winds that can transport smoke southward from Canada to upstate New York,” he said.
As for what to do until those fires die down, experts advise you to keep an eye on the forecasts for yourself, be aware of when those numbers of fine particles rise above 100 into the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” category, consider wearing a mask outdoors, and use air conditioning indoors as measures against any potential cumulative physical harm from the air pollutants.
To check the air quality, go to the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Air Quality Index site.
It was another grey, smoky day in Genesee County on Thursday, including along Route 20 in Bethany, as weather patterns again pushed smoke from wildfires in Canada into New York.
An air quality advisory is in place and is expected to remain in effect until midnight on Friday.
The projected air quality index could reach 151 for fine particulates.
The National Weather Service states, "The higher the AQI value, the greater the health concern. When pollution levels are elevated, the New York State Department of Health recommends that individuals consider limiting strenuous outdoor physical activity to reduce the risk of adverse health effects. People who may be especially sensitive to the effects of elevated levels of pollutants include the very young and those with pre-existing respiratory problems such as asthma or heart disease."
Photo by Alison Lang, on Goodman Road, Alexander, who noticed the juxtaposition of dense smoke hanging over Genesee County from Canadian wildfires and beef cattle in a field.
The New York State Department of Health recommends that with the reduced air quality, everyone should limit his or her outdoor activities to reduce exposure. Masks will be available to the public at the following locations in Genesee and Orleans Counties during normal business hours while supplies last.
Genesee County- Business Hours: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Emergency Management Office, 7690 State Street Road, Batavia
County Building 2, 3837 West Main Street Road, Batavia
Old Courthouse, 7 Main Street, Batavia
Office for the Aging, 2 Bank Street, Batavia
Orleans County- Business Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Orleans County Administration Building, 14016 Route 31 West, Albion
The New York State Department of Health provides the following tips to stay safe:
Limit time outdoors
Keep windows and doors closed
Avoid strenuous activities outdoors, especially for those with asthma, allergies, and other respiratory health issues
Avoid prolonged exposure outdoors, especially for those with health vulnerabilities, such as cardiovascular disease or lung disease, and those who are pregnant
For those that must be outside for a prolonged period of time, wear a tight fitting mask
Exposure to reduced air quality can pose negative health risks, including:
Irritation to eyes, nose, or throat
Coughing
Sneezing
Runny nose
Shortness of breath
Individuals with symptoms or related health concerns should contact their healthcare provider.
If you’re breathing a little easier with the downgraded air quality levels of late, Derek Mallia, assistant professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah, has projections that may give pause for celebration.
Although the worst may be over, as far as high levels of the particulate matter 2.5 are concerned, this region is not out of the woods just yet. So to speak.
Derek Mallia, assistant professor of atmospheric science at the University of Utah
“It could be a very intermittent, kind of smoky summer for areas in New York,” Mallia said during a phone interview Friday from Utah with The Batavian.
In addition to his professional interests in fire and the correlation between land and atmospheric impacts, Mallia is from the Schenectady area with family still there, so he has preserved a keen interest in how Canadian wildfires are affecting this region.
The smoky skies are the result of easterly winds — “any wind out of the west will probably give you some smoke through summer … that could be through July or August,” he said — versus when southerly winds blow, the temperatures will be hotter but with less smoke in the air, he said.
Wildfires in Alberta — which have really just begun to flare up, are not going to be as diluted as in past years, he said. This is earlier for Canada’s wildfires, which, combined with the wind flow, is why they are more noticeable and causing more air quality issues.
"The good news is that the winds will be more out of the West in the coming week or so. And so that's a good thing in that you won't be getting the smoke as much from Northern Quebec, but the wildfires in Alberta and British Columbia, so that's gonna be like Western Canada. Those fires, which kind of died down because they had a lot of rain a couple of weeks ago, that kind of slowed down those fires, but things are getting dragged in there. And so those fires are really starting to really start pumping, really starting to grow. So they're producing a lot more smoke than they were like a week ago,” he said. “And so long story short, what I would say is because there's so many areas in Canada that are burning, it could be a very intermittent, kind of smoky summer for areas in New York. Because there's so much fire activity in Canada right now, anyone that's out of the west or the Northwest, or what our north will probably give you some smoke. So that's my longer-term kind of projection of what summer could look like in upstate New York right now.”
Before proceeding, The Batavian asked Mallia to clarify something for all of those naysayers that have posted comments online that this is just a “Canadian campfire” or no different than the good ol’ days when smoking was allowed in bars. Are they right?
As far as the pollutants, there isn’t much difference between a wildfire and a campfire, he said. They both put out similar particulates into the air. However, there is one major disparity.
“If you really think about it deeply, it’s the same kind of smoke, right? And it's certainly not any different. The difference, though, is, if you're sitting by a campfire, you're probably sitting next to it for what, maybe an hour at most. And you may or may not be in the smoke, and you move yourself out of the smoke. So that's number one,” he said. “Number two, a lot of people are doing their jobs outside, and they're actually moving around in the smoke. When you're at a campfire, you're probably not exercising a ton, so you're not inhaling as deeply. So that's the other thing. I mean, if you're not sick, and you’re in campfire smoke for long enough, though, you would probably start developing asthma and stuff. But I mean, if we're sitting in a campfire smoke for, you know, hours upon hours, yeah, you're gonna feel your lungs, you're gonna start feeling tired. And I think a lot of people don't realize that probably because they're having fun and enjoying the campfire. But they're not thinking about, well, maybe I'm sitting in smoke for a long period of time, like my lungs will actually start hurting, but they're not thinking about that because they're having a good time.”
So take that wildfire smoke — that smoke plume over a good chunk of the Northeast — and you can't really get away from it, he said, other than to go into your house.
“But a lot of people don't have good filtration systems; a lot of that smoke actually gets into their homes, especially in the Northeast, where a lot of those homes are older,” he said.
That's a difference where it may behoove people to take some precautions when the air quality gets to a level of concern. Yes, N95 masks can help filter out that small particulate matter, and air conditioning and air purifiers with air filters can also help to clean out the air in one’s home, he said.
Although an article in The NY Times had also suggested using fans to circulate the indoor air, he didn’t agree with that remedy, since it just “spreads the same air around.” You may also want to change air filters more regularly, he said.
Cautioning that he isn’t a medical doctor and therefore wasn’t dispensing actual medical-related advice, Mallia was certain that on that Wednesday a week ago when this region suffered from air quality readings of more than 150, which hit the warning level, “no one should have been outside.”
People that are generally in good condition and not suffering from cardiovascular or respiratory conditions should be fine with short-term exposure to wildfire air exposure. That naturally led The Batavian to ask, with climate change and wildfires not likely to go away and quite possibly increase, what about long-term exposure?
Mallia is hoping to answer that in the near future. He and fellow researchers in Utah are investigating whether wildfires in the future will impact the air quality in the Northeast United States. They have applied to NASA for grant funding to study this very issue.
“That's actually a great science question, we have something that we're trying to actually look at right now. Over the past 20 to 25 years, air quality has actually gotten better across the eastern U.S. during the summertime. And it's gotten worse in the Western U.S. The driver behind that has been more wildfires across the West. But we're starting to look at this now in that okay, well, fires continue to get worse. Will that trend of air quality getting better across the eastern U.S. continue? And we're hypothesizing that no, due to climate change, with bigger fires, that areas across the East we might see more exposure to wildfire smoke, the fires are getting bigger, they're emitting more smoke, they're also doing something, what we refer to as pyro cumulus nimbus class.
"So if a fire gets hot enough, or burns enough nap or smoke matter, it can actually create thunderstorms over the fire. And so why this is relevant is that this can actually help inject the smoke further up into the atmosphere. And if it gets injected further up in the atmosphere, it increases the likelihood that smoke gets injected into the jet stream. And that will increase the geographical coverage of the smoke and, therefore, a big fire that's burning," he said. "And let's say California, or the state of Washington, that increases the likelihood that that smoke might make it all the way to somewhere like, let's say, upstate New York, for example. And so, we do believe that it is possible that the Eastern U.S. could see worse air quality during the summertime due to wildfires. So that is definitely a scientific question that I'm interested in answering.”
When growing up in New York, he had the “weather bug,” he said, with a dream to become a meteorologist, and when pursuing his bachelor’s in atmospheric sciences at the University of Albany, he was studying snowstorms, since wildfires were not “a big thing” at the time. He went on to obtain his Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah in 2018.
“But then I ended up getting an opportunity to do my Ph.D. out west, and it wasn't wildfire smoke, which is a direction that I'd never really kind of foresaw that I would do. And back in 2010, wildfire smoke was, you know, it was a thing, but it wasn't that big of a thing. And it's kind of blown up into this really massive thing that people are really interested in,” he said. “This is something I’m really passionate about. Personally, I’ve always been fascinated by meteorology, wildfires and air quality. And so I’m just trying to improve the way that we kind of forecast these things, and projecting these impacts has been kind of a personal interest. It just happens to also be my job.”
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation at
Albany has issued an Air Quality Health Advisory for Fine
Particulates until midnight EDT tonight.
Air quality levels in outdoor air are predicted to be greater than
an Air Quality Index value of 100 for Fine Particulates.
The Air
Quality Index...or AQI...was created as an easy way to correlate
levels of different pollutants to one scale. The higher the AQI
value...the greater the health concern.
When pollution levels are elevated...the New York State Department
of Health recommends that individuals consider limiting strenuous
outdoor physical activity to reduce the risk of adverse health
effects. People who may be especially sensitive to the effects of
elevated levels of pollutants include the very young and those with
pre-existing respiratory problems such as asthma or heart disease.
Those with symptoms should consider consulting their personal
physician.
The New York State Department of Health recommends that with the reduced air quality, everyone should limit their outdoor activities to reduce exposure. Masks will be available to the public at the following locations in Genesee and Orleans Counties on Thursday, June 8th, 2023, during normal business hours until supplies last.
Genesee County- Business Hours: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Emergency Management Office, 7690 State Street Road, Batavia
Old Courthouse, 7 Main Street, Batavia
Orleans County- Business Hours: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Orleans County Administration Building, 14016 Route 31 West, Albion
The New York State Department of Health provides the following tips to stay safe:
Limit time outdoors
Keep windows and doors closed
Avoid strenuous activities outdoors, especially for those with asthma, allergies, and other respiratory health issues
Avoid prolonged exposure outdoors, especially for those with health vulnerabilities, such as cardiovascular disease or lung disease, and those who are pregnant
For those that must be outside for a prolonged period of time, wear a tight-fitting mask
Exposure to reduced air quality can pose negative health risks, including:
Irritation to eyes, nose, or throat
Coughing
Sneezing
Runny nose
Shortness of breath
Individuals with symptoms or related health concerns should contact their healthcare provider.
Genesee County, remains under an air quality health advisory, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.
The air quality seems to have improved over a significant portion of Western New York, but Genesee County and further east is still a hazardous area, according to the most recent report.
The air quality in Genesee County is still considered hazardous, according to the DEC.
The DEC held a press conference this morning to brief the public on the ongoing air quality situation caused by wildfires in Canada.
Commissioner Basil Seggos, a DEC commissioner, said all of New York State, with the exception of the Adirondacks, are under a health advisory.
Downstate is hardest hit, followed by Central New York, and WNY is enduring fewer pollutant particles in the air.
"We don't expect any relief in sight from the fires that are burning across the provinces," Seggos said.
There is no rain in the forecast for Canada or New York until next week. The rain could help with firefighting and clearing the air.
McDonald called on New Yorkers to limit, if not eliminate, campfires and open burns.
"We urge all New Yorkers to limit outdoor activity," Seggos said. "It's unhealthy for all New Yorkers. There are some groups, of course, who will experience greater conditions, greater health conditions, as a result of the smoke. We also urge New Yorkers to limit any kind of campfires they are burning. Not only are you potentially exacerbating local air quality issues, but this is a very dry state. We've been tracking a very dry state now for many weeks. We're looking at a prolonged period of dryness, which of course, gives rise to fire conditions here in New York, and we don't need our first responders running around putting out fires in New York."
James McDonald, the commissioner of the DEC, said all New Yorkers should take care to avoid exposure to the outside air, which is filled with fine particles from the fires. He said vulnerable people should especially stay indoors. This includes, but is not limited to, people with existing lung disease, some with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, people with heart disease, people with congestive heart failure, and people who have had a prior heart attack.
For those who feel the need for the protection, he recommended wearing an N-95 mask when walking outside.
"These masks do remove particles; they do remove air pollution, as some of you might remember from the pandemic," McDonald said. "N95 masks are sold at major big box hardware stores for a reason -- some people in the construction industry use masks like this because there are very effective at removing particles and keeping the air pollutant particles we're talking about, which are much larger than viral particles."
To get updates on air quality, he recommended visiting airnow.gov.
Statement from Batavia City School District Superintendent Jason Smith:
Dear BCSD Families and Community,
As you may have seen on the news, experts believe the air quality issues we’ve been experiencing due to the fires in Canada will continue in the coming days.
Therefore, all BCSD outdoor activities are canceled on Wednesday, June 7
We are in talks with Section V regarding tomorrow’s Sectional Flag Football game. As of right now, the game is scheduled to go on as planned, but please keep an eye on our BCSD Facebook page for the most up-to-date information, as the status may change.
We’ll continue to provide district-wide updates should the air quality issues continue. I’ve also discussed the situation with our Buildings and Grounds team, and they assure me there are no concerns with indoor air quality at this time.
For additional information on the status of individual school-based activities, like class field trips, you will get more information from your child’s school directly. Please reach out to your child’s main office if you have any questions.
Thank you.
Jason Smith
Superintendent of Schools
UPDATE 10:11 p.m.: The Batavian has asked other district superintendents for their plans for Wednesday. We will update this post and information is released to us.
Le Roy: Superintendent Merritt Holly said that the district's participation in the Kinderfarmin event in Pavilion, an outside event, has been canceled. Also, physical education classes and recess activities will also remain inside unless the projected air quality levels improve.
UPDATE June 7 at 9 a.m.:
Oakfield-Alabama: Superintendent John Fisgus sent the following message to the school community: "The recent forest fires in Canada have significantly impacted the air quality in our WNY region. Based upon the guidance we have received from our various health and weather authorities and out of an abundance of caution, we will be limiting all outdoor activities today, Wednesday, June 7." Some information for today: The ES KInderfarming trip has been canceled. All outdoor activities (recess, PE classes) are canceled for today. Students will remain indoors. The HS Sports Awards Ceremony will continue tonight as scheduled.
Elba: From Superintendent Gretchen Rosales, "We have been carefully monitoring the air quality index and have been in contact with the Department of Health regarding safe practices for our students and staff. At this time, we have postponed one outdoor field trip and are holding PE and recess indoors today. Otherwise, we are holding off on wider cancellations as the air quality index can fluctuate. While we are taking a wait-and-see approach, we also encourage our Lancer family to always make the best decisions for their children; should any parent or guardian wish to have their child remain indoors for the time being, we will certainly honor their decision."
UPDATE 1:25 p.m.: Elba is holding all activities indoors.
If the smells wafting through your open windows have been tinged with burning embers more than tangy barbecue sauce Tuesday, they’re likely coming from wildfires raging through eastern Canada, and a rheumatology expert has five words of advice to keep in mind.
Don’t panic and use caution, says Dr. Shahzad Mustafa of Rochester Regional Health’s Immunology and Rheumatology Department.
“It would have a modest impact on respiratory conditions, and there’s absolutely no reason for panic,” Mustafa said during a Zoom call with journalists Tuesday afternoon. “You don’t want to overreact … but you want to be thoughtful about it. The analogy would be if you’re around (someone smoking tobacco). Certainly, it can be irritating, and it can affect how you feel, but I wouldn’t expect certain respiratory effects in the short term. By short-term, I mean hours, days, not lifelong.”
One journalist had said the state Department of Environmental Conservation had graded air quality at a level of 152, which Mustafa said was not an unhealthy stage, but one that should be heeded.
If people are exercising outdoors and begin to feel the effects of the smoke — considered to be pollutants and not allergens, he said — then they may want to take it indoors.
Some school districts, including Batavia City Schools, canceled outdoor activities for the day due to the air quality warnings that have been issued this past week and with a special emphasis on Tuesday via news reports.
The eastern section of the United States was literally facing some unhealthy air conditions as winds carried in the hazy effects of wildfires from Ohio Valley to as far south as the Carolinas, according to NBC News.
Journalists from various counties in the region remarked just how palpable these fires have become locally — in sight, smell and taste of a dirty sky, sooty air and ashy flavor.
There can be a degree of impairment to anyone, Mustafa said; however, that’s more a statement of caution than fact, and to use common sense about going and remaining outside. As for those school districts, such as Batavia canceling its Color Run for the day, they were being prudent, he said.
“I think it’s a reasonable approach to cancel outdoor physical education for today due to allergic conditions, and if asthma affects a couple of kids, that’s a reasonable approach out of an abundance of caution,” he said. “And if it’s short-lived, I think it’s okay. We’re kind of blessed. We don’t get impacted by outdoor air quality that often, as major metropolitan areas with population are affected more often.”
What about pet lovers? Should they continue to take Max for his walks? “It’s hard to know; there may be impacts. Maybe shorten your walks,” Mustafa said. “Most people can do outdoor activities, but if you’re not feeling well, get inside.”
Keep in mind to:
Use common sense and monitor how you, your pet and others around you are feeling.
Consider wearing a mask if you are very sensitive to the current air quality.
Do what you feel is best for you in the absence of significant health concerns.
Understand that short-term exposure may be okay versus long-term, which “can have a tremendous impact on health.”
Later on Tuesday, the state DEC issued an air quality advisory for Genesee and several other Western New York counties through midnight Wednesday.
The National Weather Service has issued an air quality alert for Genesee County starting at 11 a.m. and lasting until 11 p.m.
The index value for outdoor air quality is expected to exceed 100 for the pollutant ozone.
The higher the number of the air quality index, the greater the health concern.
When the index is high, the State Health Department recommends that individuals consider limiting strenuous outdoor physical activity to reduce the risk of adverse health effects. Those with preexisting respiratory problems, such as asthma or heart disease, and with such symptoms, should consult a personal physician.
The toll-free number for air quality reports is (800) 535-1345.
