Canada wildfires air quality deteriorated on Friday as smoke from Canada and Minnesota spread deeper into the United States, blanketing Washington, D.C. and much of the Great Lakes, Northeast and mid-Atlantic with unhealthy air. Millions of people were under those conditions as warnings stayed in place through Saturday.
Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service based in Maryland, said the smoke was not clearing quickly. “The source of the smoke is going to continue on for certainly a week, probably,” he said, because the fires continued to burn largely unchecked.
Washington, D.C. and Chicago
In Washington, D.C., Stewart Verdery described the scene after posting a video on X. “It’s pretty crazy to wake up at sunrise and not see the sun when it’s not even raining,” he said by phone, adding, “And it smells like somebody’s having the world’s largest cookout.” The Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and other national landmarks were wrapped in orange-hued haze for much of Friday.
In Chicago, Maria Travela crossed a bridge over the Chicago River downtown wearing a mask. Travela, who has asthma, said Friday was her first day outside since smoke blanketed the Chicago area early Thursday. “Now it’s better. This morning, it was bad,” she said. “They were saying that, for people like me, with asthma, any kind of issues like that, it would be bad for your lungs.”
Ontario and Minnesota Fires
Wildfires were burning in Ontario and in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, and U.S. officials closed the wilderness area as they worked to put out the blazes. Doug Ford said about 190 wildfires were burning in northern Ontario on Friday, while 10 northern Ontario communities had been evacuated or were being evacuated, with more possible.
IQAir placed communities in Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan, including Detroit, among the worst air quality in the world on Friday. Washington, D.C. was not far behind Detroit, showing how widely the smoke plume spread across the region.
Trump and the Canada Smoke
Donald Trump posted on social media Friday blaming Canada for its forest management and threatening additional tariffs on Canada. The smoke was tied to hundreds of wildfires burning in Canada, and the broader weather pattern carried the plume far beyond the fires themselves.
People with heart or lung disease, older adults and children were urged to limit or avoid going outside until air quality improved. Warnings of dangerous conditions were expected to remain in effect through Saturday, while storms in some affected areas could offer temporary relief without changing the broader outlook through the weekend.
