Western Wildfires' Spread Creates A Smoke-Filled Nation

ACROSS AMERICA — Wildfires burning in the Western United States and Canada aren’t only forcing evacuations in some of those areas — they also are creating weather changes and smoky conditions spreading from coast to coast.

Haze from wildfire smoke was spotted Tuesday and Wednesday as far away as Eastern cities including New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., according to several reports. Air quality alerts as a result of the fires as far away as Oregon and California were in effect for Pennsylvania and New York, among others.

David Lawrence, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said in a USA Today report, “we’re seeing lots of fires producing a tremendous amount of smoke.”

“By the time that smoke gets to the eastern portion of the country where it’s usually thinned out, there’s just so much smoke in the atmosphere from all these fires that it’s still pretty thick,” Lawrence said.

Even in places where clear skies were predicted on Tuesday — such as Albany, New York — the sun was noticeably hard to find.

"In areas where skies are 'clear,' thick smoke aloft is limiting sunshine, with no discernible sunrise visible at our office earlier this morning despite practically clear skies!" the National Weather Service office in the New York state capital said, according to CNN.

Maryland was under a “Code Orange” weather alert Wednesday, partly due to the threat of hazy conditions from the Western fires.

The Bootleg Fire alone is “creating its own weather,” according to The New York Times, which has an interactive map showing where smoke has spread from the fires. Taking up nearly 400,000 acres in southern Oregon’s Fremont National Forest, the fire was only 32 percent contained as of Wednesday afternoon as it grew to 616 square miles — just over half the size of Rhode Island.

It’s one of at least 80 large fires burning across 13 states, a clear majority in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. At least a dozen fires were burning in California alone on Wednesday.

See Also: Map Of All Wildfires Burning In California

The Oregon fire has ravaged the sparsely populated southern part of the state and has been expanding by up to 4 miles a day, pushed by gusting winds and critically dry weather that’s turned trees and undergrowth into a tinderbox.

Fire crews have had to retreat from the flames for 10 consecutive days as fireballs jump from treetop to treetop, trees explode, embers fly ahead of the fire to start new blazes and, in some cases, the inferno’s heat creates its own weather of shifting winds and dry lightning. Monstrous clouds of smoke and ash have risen up to 6 miles into the sky and are visible for more than 100 air miles.

Air quality alerts in Minnesota and North Dakota has been enacted due to fires raging just north of there in Canada, according to the USA Today and others.

"Smoke from wildfires located north of the Canadian border in Ontario and Manitoba will be transported by northerly winds behind a front moving into the northern portions of the state," National Weather Service meteorologists in North Dakota said, according to CNN.

See Also: Oregon Wildfires Fueled by Extreme Weather; Outside Help Sought

The Associated Press contributed reporting.