Toronto engulfed by wildfire smoke as US cities threatened

Monitor ranks Toronto as having the worst air quality on earth, surpassing Kinshasa, DR Congo, and New Delhi, India.Toronto’s air quality has ranked the worst among all major cities in the world as smoke from wildfires in northwestern Ontario blankets the skies and spreads into the northeastern United States, triggering multiple health warnings and evacuations.wildfires continued burning through sparsely populated areas hundreds of miles from Toronto, Canada’s largest city, on Wednesday, sending smoke over a wide area, although cities in the area are not being threatened.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3More than 2,700 deaths linked to heatwaves in UKlist 2 of 3Wildfires near Paris force evacuations, disrupt train lines and motorwaylist 3 of 3Record El Niño threatens to unleash floods across East Africa and Asiaend of listEnvironment Canada reported an Air Quality Health Index reading of 10+, classified as “very high risk”, for Toronto. Forecasts suggested that hazardous conditions could persist through Thursday night.IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company, ranked Toronto as having the worst air quality across the globe, surpassing the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Kinshasa and India’s New Delhi.“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 Araradian of IQAir told the AFP news agency.While this year’s wildfire season in Canada has been fairly muted compared with recent years, there are more than 800 active fires nationwide.A video that went viral on social media showed a Canadian National train surrounded by fire near Armstrong, Ontario. Canadian National employees in the area and residents of Armstrong were evacuated on Monday night, the railroad operator said in a statement. It suspended rail operations near Armstrong as a precaution.Smoke from the wildfires also worsened air quality across the border in the US, with the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire particularly affected.