Smoke from forest fires blankets American cities ahead of the World Cup final

Thick plumes of smoke from forest fires drifting south from Canada and northern Minnesota prompted new air quality warnings across the United States on Friday, raising concerns about the World Cup final scheduled for Sunday near New York.

U.S. President Donald Trump launched an attack on Canada, where authorities reported that more than 200 fires remained out of control on Friday, describing the pollution as “completely unacceptable.”

Detroit became the most polluted city in the world due to the smoke, according to the tracking website IQAir. Washington and Chicago were not far behind in terms of pollution levels, and officials urged residents to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary.

In New York and neighboring New Jersey, where the final will be held on Sunday at an open-air stadium, weather conditions had become “unhealthy,” after Thursday’s haze made the Manhattan skyline barely visible.

The National Weather Service warned that the smoke could intensify overnight and into Saturday morning.

Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House World Cup Task Force, said in a press briefing that tournament organizers were “closely monitoring the situation.”

Experts at the National Weather Service warned that the smoke could intensify overnight and into Saturday morning.

Peter Moulton, an expert at the National Weather Service, told Agence France-Presse, “What we will start to see is a return of northwesterly winds over the Great Lakes region, which will carry part of that smoke and push it toward the Northeast.”

However, he clarified that forecasts do not indicate that air quality in the northeastern United States on Sunday will be as poor as it has been in the region over the past week.

He added, “During the match between Spain and Argentina, we do not expect to see the intense smoke density we are currently witnessing,” even if hazy conditions persist.

He continued, “I don’t believe it will have as much impact as playing a match under current conditions.”

Mark Parrington, an expert at Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, noted that rainfall later in the week might also help alleviate the smoke.

He told Agence France-Presse, “We just have to see whether those fires will continue at the same scale.”

Trump announced that he would call Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney “today to find out what they are going to do about this.”

He wrote on his platform Truth Social, “The United States is being subjected to an unjustified invasion of dirty, polluted, unhealthy air, whose quality is dangerous and completely unacceptable.”

In cities in the Midwest and Northeast, people wore masks outdoors to filter polluted and hazardous air, with libraries and train stations distributing them for free in New York.

Chris Carlstein, who studies the health effects of wildfire smoke at the University of British Columbia, told Agence France-Presse that fine particulate matter from forest fires particularly affects the lungs, whereas pollution from vehicles tends to impact the heart more.

As the smoke travels, it undergoes what is known as “photochemical aging,” a series of reactions that Carlstein says “appear, based on what we know in chemistry, to make the aerosols more toxic.”

The impact is most severe in the Upper Midwest, closest to the fire sites, with parts of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin recording air quality in the “hazardous” range.