Ontario wildfires sent smoke into Montreal and left a freight train engulfed in flames in Armstrong, Ontario on Tuesday as a record-breaking heat dome gripped parts of Canada. More than 100 million people were under heat alerts.
An unnamed driver inside the cab said, "This could potentially overtake us here, this is getting a little scary, holy s--t. We're encased in flames now." The video captured the train fire in Armstrong while smoke from northern Quebec and north-western Ontario turned Montreal’s sky yellow that morning.
Montreal and Armstrong, Ontario
Environment and Climate Change Canada warned that deteriorating air quality could push the air quality health index toward the high-risk category. That warning came as Ottawa and Toronto were forecast to hit 38C, while Billings in southern Montana reached 44C and Salt Lake City reached 43C on Tuesday.
Marc Alessi, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said, "Our atmosphere is much warmer. Our oceans are much warmer. They're releasing a lot more heat into the atmosphere, and this heat dome is an example of you know what fossil fuel-driven climate change looks like." He said heat domes are a natural part of the climate system, but warmer air and oceans mean they now behave differently.
US National Weather Service
The US National Weather Service said the most intense heat would arrive in the North East on Wednesday and spread into the Mid-Atlantic, with cities from Richmond, Virginia, to Boston, Massachusetts, expected to approach 38C. Forecasters expected the heat to ease in most areas by the end of the week, but the underlying heat dome was expected to persist for the rest of the month.
The practical question for people in the affected areas is whether conditions improve quickly enough to change travel, work, and air-quality plans before the month ends. For now, the smoke, heat alerts, and fire damage are moving on different timelines, and the train fire in Armstrong is part of that wider pattern.
