Gothamist77%
Smoke-filled skies are new normal for NYC summers, experts warn 64%
By Rosemary Misdary79%
7/17/2026, 5:10:12 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Framing Effect, and Biased Writer Voice, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 25.6% saturation with 170 hits. Analysis detected 1,451 faulty-reasoning hits from 663 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 58.7% and a BS Rank of 64% (7,898 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 63.90% of the article peer group.
Smoke-filled summer skies are a new normal for New York City, and experts say it's likely to worsen.
When Canadian wildfire smoke turned the city’s skies orange, the sight was familiar to New Yorkers.
This is the fourth consecutive year wildfires have triggered air quality alerts in the city, according to the governor’s office.
The problem grew apparent in June 2023, when smoke from Canadian wildfires turned the city’s skies orange.
The city’s air quality index hit of 484, the highest ever recorded and just shy of the scale’s max of 500.
Such high levels of air pollution can severely impact vulnerable people like the elderly, triggering asthma attacks and increasing the risk of strokes and heart attacks.
Even healthy, physically fit adults struggle to breathe.
While this week’s smoke didn’t break records, experts said New Yorkers should expect more smokey days as climate change causes more frequent and severe wildfires.
“Warmer weather and drier weather results in a tinderbox really waiting for a single spark to set it,” said Robbie Parks, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University.
“We expect an increase in prevalence as climate change creates warmer weather and drier conditions in some parts of North America.”
The United Nations Panel on Climate Change predicts increasingly hotter temperatures worldwide, which sets up wildfires to be not only more frequent, but larger and harder to put-out.
The fires also create a lethal cycle.
The blazes release a massive amount of carbon emissions.
The increased carbon emissions, in turn, exacerbate climate change, further warming the planet and causing frequent, larger and more intense fires.
A 2024 study published in the journal Nature found fires in Canada from May to September of 2023 emitted more carbon dioxide than a majority of the countries on earth do in a year.
The Canadian government on Friday reported about 900 active fires across the country, 127 of them listed as out of control.
The Canadians have reported a total of 3,137 fires so far this year, already exceeding the number reported in all of 2025.
Canadian authorities predict this year’s wildfire season could worsen.
Forecasts in the region point to hotter-than-average temperatures through August, which sets the stage for more frequent blazes.
As of mid-July, Indigenous Services Canada reported 1,600 First Nations residents had been evacuated from their lands due to the fires.
The smokey air becomes even more dangerous when coupled with a heat wave.
Parks said that breathing in the smoke is basically inhaling poison, which can cause asthma attacks and strain the body’s cardiovascular system.
High temperatures add additional stress to the body.
“If it's hotter but then there's also wildfire smoke, there's an issue of your heart being under strain already, but then also the wildfire can trigger worse attacks of things because your body is already under increased pressure,” Parks said.
Physically fit adults are vulnerable to the smokey air, too, and can experience heaviness in their chest, fatigue, headaches and irritation of the nose, eyes and throat.
“Even just going outside for a few minutes can potentially impact health,” Parks said.
“Even healthy people have got things to worry about there.”
Parks said the real solution to smokey days is addressing the root causes of climate change.
Short of that, the city health department recommends staying indoors with the doors and windows while using air filters.
The department also advises New Yorkers to limit their time outdoors while the air quality is poor and wear KN95 masks when they leave the house.
“I'm walking around the city and lots of people are wearing masks,” Parks said.
“When it cascades to the health impacts, it depends on who is exposed and who is vulnerable and the resilience methods people are following.”
While there are no solid predictions as to when the smoke will leave the city, rains are expected this weekend, which could help rid the air of smoke.
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