New York City covered in smoke as wildfires in western US send haze across the country

Wildfires raging across the western United States and Canada, including a “monster“ two-week-old blaze in Oregon, belched smoke and soot that gusted eastward and caused harmful air pollution as far away as New York City. In 13 western states, more than 80 large active wildfires have charred almost 1.3 million acres of drought-parched vegetation in recent weeks, an area larger than Delaware, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. Several hundred additional fires have burned in western and central Canada. They included 86 classified as out of control on Tuesday in British Columbia alone, leading officials there to declare a state of emergency.