'Like sitting around a smoky campfire;' Air quality, visibility to be severely impacted by wildfire smoke (UPDATED)

Smoke from wildfires raging in central Canada is expected to blanket northern Ohio and seriously impact both air quality and visibility on Thursday. The Ohio EPA has issued an air quality advisory for all of Ohio starting at 7 a.m. today, and the agency said in a press release that the Air Quality Index, or AQI, is expected to reach the "Unhealthy" range. In Lorain County specifically, the Ohio EPA projected that the air quality could reach the "Hazardous" range of the AQI on Thursday, meaning that the air is considered unhealthy for all groups and "everyone should stay indoors and reduce activity levels." "Our advice is pretty much to shelter in place, stay indoors and make sure you keep air cycling inside, not pulling air from the outside," said National Weather Service of Cleveland Meteorologist Mike Griffin. "Masks always help with some of the particulates in the air if smoke is noticeable, as it definitely will be tomorrow. It will be like sitting around a smoky campfire all day tomorrow." Canadian wildfires have impacted Ohio sporadically over the past several years, with heavy smoke blanketing Lorain County and much of northern Ohio in the summer of 2024. The smoke arriving Thursday is expected to blanket the region though, to a much larger extent than in years past, Griffin said Wednesday. "A couple of summers ago we had smoke in the upper levels of the atmosphere, we had some haze and some smoky visibility," he said. "This time around, we are seeing reports from the northwest of us – in parts of Michigan and the upper Great Lakes – where the visibility is a half a mile or even a quarter of a mile," Griffin. "It is almost like dense fog, but it is smoke. Some of that is going to be drifting into our area late tonight and then more so tomorrow, and we may have areas where you won't be able to see a half-mile down the road, it will be that dense." Griffin said that the main reason the smoke will be thicker this week is that there are fires occurring in Ontario northwest of Lake Superior, just across the border from Minnesota. That is far closer to Northern Ohio than the 2024 fires that raged west of Calgary and in the Canadian Rockies. He added that the smoke is also denser and staying closer to the ground, rather than rising into the atmosphere as it did in 2024. "The fires are a lot closer to us and they are much more dense, there are multiple big fires in that area," Griffin said. "They are clustered together and they are concentrated. Right now the smoke is really dense across Lake Superior, Lake Huron and parts of Lake Michigan. It is dense, it is on ground level and that is what is coming in (to Ohio) tomorrow." The Ohio EPA's air quality alert will remain in effect until the agency announces its expiration, and Griffin said that he expected the advisory will remain in place at least through Friday, before storms expected to arrive Saturday will clear some smoke from the area. In a release, the Ohio EPA said that the anticipated air quality for Thursday meant that some members of the general public could face health effects and members of sensitive groups could experience more serious health issues. "To decrease the potential for health issues, sensitive groups of people should avoid all outdoor activities," the Ohio EPA said in the release. "Everyone else should limit prolonged or strenuous outdoor activity. Go inside if you have symptoms such as coughing or shortness of breath. If you continue to experience adverse health effects, please contact your doctor." The AQI measures air quality on a standardized scale from 0 to 500. Hazardous conditions are anything above 300 on the scale, an amount Lorain County is projected to hit on Thursday. The main pollutant of concern is PM2.5, referring to particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers. According to the EPA, that such particles are to tiny that they can easily be inhaled and can damage the heart and lungs. For live AQI ratings, projections and the latest information on alerts visit airnow.gov or forecast.weather.gov. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.