Toronto air ranked among world's worst as wildfire smoke billows south

Toronto had the worst air quality of any major city in the world on Wednesday, the Swiss firm IQAir said, as Canadian authorities urged people to stay indoors.

Toronto edged out New Delhi and the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa as wildfire smoke turned the skies a hazy yellowish-grey in Canada's largest city.

"The biggest contributor to Toronto's spike in air pollution right now is wildfires, though the higher than average temperatures are also playing a role," Armen Aradian of IQAir told AFP.

While this year's wildfire season has been fairly muted compared to the devastation caused in recent years, there are more than 800 active fires nationwide.

Smoke from blazes in northwestern Ontario has filtered down to Toronto, the provincial capital.

City officials have closed pools, cancelled summer camp programs and closed the official FIFA Fan Festival ahead of Wednesday's semi-final match between England and Argentina.

Montreal saw a similar, though less severe impact from wildfires on Tuesday.

Smoke from the wildfires also worsened air quality across the border in the United States, with Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire particularly impacted.

New Yorkers were warned by state authorities that they "may see visible smoke and hazy skies across the state and spikes in smoke-related pollution."

Canadians are enduring potentially hazardous air as a record-smashing North American heat wave persists.

Extreme heat and humidity in the Mountain West spilled over to the densely populated East Coast of the United States and Ontario.

The heat in Ontario is expected to ease by the weekend, but officials have warned of persistent risk from wildfires through the remaining summer months.

So far, Canadian wildfires have scorched 1.9 million hectares this year, an area nearly the size of Slovenia.

That damage remains far off the pace of 2023, Canada's worst wildfire season on record, when nearly 18 million hectares burned in the country.

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© Agence France-Presse