Air quality warning from wildfires
If your eyes are feeling gritty on Saturday morning it’s because we have an air quality warning.
Most of my life we didn’t have wildfire smoke every summer. Now it’s just as much part of summer life as butterflies and lemonade.
“You may experience mild and common symptoms such as eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches or a mild cough.” This from the Environment Canada site. Mild and common symptoms. Nothing to worry about.
Let’s build more oil pipelines!
MarcG 15:45 on 2025-07-26 Permalink
Sad that this is the future we chose and keep choosing.
I probably posted this earlier but if here’s a handy tool to find an air cleaner. I preset some options that you probably want to tweak for your room size, noise tolerance, etc.
CE 20:19 on 2025-07-26 Permalink
I’ve been outside all day since about 10am and haven’t felt any of the usual symptoms of smoky air (itchy eyes and throat, weird taste in my mouth, thirst, etc). I think the air was worse last night than it was today.
walkerp 21:45 on 2025-07-26 Permalink
Same.
EmilyG 22:05 on 2025-07-26 Permalink
I remember a time earlier in my life when the weather forecast never said “smoke.”
maggie rose 05:54 on 2025-07-27 Permalink
I notice the AQI (air quality index) varies at different stations around Montreal, could account for reports of few or no symptoms. Proximity to trees & parks helps, as does not being over 65 yo. PM 2.5 readings have been higher in CSL/NDG and Westmount for the past 2 days, way higher than further east. And we have lots of trees around us. Weird. With my windows open it was sort of an itchy eye day yesterday, but I ventilate my apartment well. The green hazy sky wouldn’t look out of place in Bladerunner.
MarcG 07:41 on 2025-07-27 Permalink
The air is still garbage this morning and just because you’re not experiencing acute symptoms doesn’t mean you’re not breathing in PM2.5. I can’t believe this needs to be said but since the pandemic broke everyone’s brains, here we go: Air monitors and studies on the impacts of wildfire smoke provide useful data, people on the internet saying “I feel fine” do not.
MarcG 08:55 on 2025-07-27 Permalink
Another common-sense-isn’t-useful and delayed-symptom-onset-is-real tip: You can get a sunburn on a cloudy day if the UV index is high. Walking around under a cloud feeling fine, wake up next day with a painful burn.
walkerp 10:24 on 2025-07-27 Permalink
A couple of issues with all this hemming and hawing about people not reacting to the air quality warnings.
First, we have already a trend of Environment Canada and the news media over-hyping every weather event in advance, basically Never Wolfing them so people become inured.
Second, the actual health impact of this bad air is very unclear. I’ve heard people anecdotally suffering in the short-term (which does sound quite unpleasant) with a sick cough that goes on for a few days, burning eyes, etc. I assume there are also long-term impacts, which I would suspect are akin to the risk of skin cancer going up when you get a sunburn.
Finally, in practice, most people don’t actually suffer, at least in the short-term. Yesterday (Saturday), I played intensive outdoor sport for 2 hours and finally spent the rest of the day outside at Pocha MTL (which was very fun!) and do not feel a thing today.
Is there anywhere that clearly explains to the layperson the real risks of exposure to particulate matter from forest fires, both long and short-term?
If I currently do a personal risk analysis, the physical impact of breathing in the bad air is less negative for me than the psychological impact of being stuck inside the house on a precious Saturday with so much going on in this great city. This would be different perhaps if I were not already 5+ decades in, reproduced, etc.
Ian 10:34 on 2025-07-27 Permalink
CCOHS is a good resource. Worker health and safety is much more closely monitored as there are legal repercussions when someone files a claim for workplace related exposure to toxic substances.
https://www.ccohs.ca/newsletters/hsreport/issues/2021/05/ezine.html
Alberta is even more specific:
https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/news/ev/ne-ev-wildfire-fmm-smoke-exposure-info-for-workers.pdf
Meezly 10:55 on 2025-07-27 Permalink
It’s the cumulative effects of exposure that is the concern.
Sun exposure has a cumulative effect, meaning the damage from UV radiation builds up over time, leading to premature aging, skin cancer, etc.
We all know cigarette smoking, including 2nd hand smoke, has a cumulative effect over time. This is similar to breathing in bad air whether from wildfire smoke, pollution, etc. Sure, a day outdoors won’t hurt, but seeing that wildfires are becoming a regular occurrence, we’re going to have more poor air quality warnings during our summers.
According to a Stanford U study, an AQI measurement of 20 is equivalent to smoking one cigarette a day.
It noted that exposure to wildfire smoke causing an AQI of 150 for several days would be equivalent to smoking about seven cigarettes a day if someone were outside the whole time. Looking at Montreal’s AQI today is ranging from 110 to 127.
The warnings are there to help people decide how they want to manage their time outdoors.
MarcG 06:21 on 2025-07-28 Permalink
The choice for the individual isn’t between having fun and hiding at home. This is exactly the same false dichotomy that was presented for Covid; a result of the pre-existing cultural resistance to masking (based in anti-Asian sentiment?) buttressed by political and economic forces pushing against the normalization of socialistic empathic behavior.
I went for a walk by the river on Saturday morning and a family gathering in the afternoon, and on Sunday I went for a jog in the morning and several walks – the last one without a respirator because the AQI was finally below 100.
The problem is that at a population level these health events cause harm. Maybe not to you or anyone you know, at least in the short term where it’s easy to draw a correlation, but to the collective. ERs are more crowded, more people die waiting, more strokes, more dementia, more traffic accidents, more burned out health professionals, more sick days, more pressure to work while sick, more days off to take care of unwell loved ones, resources become strained. And the current response has been *more* individualism, more austerity, more ignoring simple preventative measures, rather than building up the habits and support systems we need to deal with the effects of smoke exposure, repeat Covid infections, aging population, etc. We all want a functional healthcare system to be there when we need it, and as much as the major problem is neoliberal government underfunding, the actions we take as individuals play a role as well. Self-care is social care, all is one, thanks for coming to my TedTalk.
MarcG 13:31 on 2025-07-29 Permalink
Here’s someone else’s interesting thoughts on prevention: No One Knows When They Don’t Die