Wildfire smoke from Canada is impacting millions of people across parts of the northern United States. Over the weekend, it was a problem in the Midwest. On Monday, forecasters expect poor air quality from Wisconsin to New York.

Smoke from numerous wildfires burning in Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, is drifting into the northern United States, causing air quality to deteriorate in several states. Cities such as Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Detroit are experiencing especially dense smoke, with Detroit ranking among the top cities globally for poor air quality.

Health officials recommend that vulnerable groups, including older adults, limit outdoor activities when air quality indices exceed 100. Residents are also advised to avoid activities that contribute to poor air quality, such as outdoor burning, and to use high-efficiency air filters or DIY air cleaners to reduce indoor smoke exposure. Symptoms of smoke exposure include coughing, difficulty breathing, and eye irritation.

Canadian wildfire smoke impacting parts of the U.S.

We are gonna start this hour with the wildfire smoke from Canada, making it harder to breathe for millions of people across the northern U. S. It was a big problem in Minnesota and Wisconsin over the weekend. Now all of that smoke is moving eastward. Forecasters expect poor air quality from Wisconsin to New York today. CBS News meteorologist Rob Marciano is here with the information you need to keep you and your family safe. Rob, good morning. Hey, good morning again, Nathan. Two years ago, man, that's when it was really bad. Remember those fires where we are approaching that sort of Canadian wildfire season? Over 700 fires are currently burning, most of which are in Saskatchewan and Manitoba across the boreal forest. Most of them are natural, but that smoke amplified by climate change is getting into the northeastern third of the country. So places like Green Bay, Milwaukee, Detroit, you're in it. As far as the air quality alerts go, Detroit is like top three right now in the world as far as cities that are unhealthy with the air quality there. So that smoke is very dense in there. These numbers replicate. Obviously, green being good, yellow, not so good. Orange is is bad. Red is even worse. So here is your index. And basically, if you get over 100, that's when you should take notice. If you are a member of the unhealthy group, older people, you should limit your outdoor activity. But like in Detroit right now, it's over 150. Uh, so unhealthy for everybody. So even a world class athlete like yourself would be suffering in Detroit, right? Well, Rob, that's my question. If you have poor air quality, what can you do to protect yourself? Well, there's some obvious things, and then there's some kind of DIY. DIY things that we can talk about as well. Avoid burning. You don't want to barbecue. You don't want to have a fire pit outside. You don't want to add to things. And then maybe a portable air cleaner. If you don't have a high end filter, you could make one yourself. Okay? So most of the filters in our HVAC units are kind of lower Merv. Merv is the minimum efficiency rating value. And basically, you want to hire Merv when you have smoke around. And you could do that by just getting a plain old box fan, taking a Merv of 13 filters, square one, just pasting it to the back side of this. You want to make it even more efficient, you can kind of cut out a circular thing, and that'll kind of focus things more. Even more efficient than that, add two in the back here. If you want to get really crazy, you can do a whole cube here and get things. And this will be almost, you know, to the quality of, say, of a hospital. So that would be the extreme thing. But I think just box fan, get one filter, and you're good to go. And obviously, pay attention to some of the symptoms, right? Well, you can smell smoke. Sometimes you can't smell it. And the particles are small enough to where you just start coughing, you'll have trouble breathing, your eyes will start to sting. Boy, when we cover wildfires, that's the one thing we always get. Scratchy throats, runny noses, headaches. I'm starting to sound like a doctor here, but you just feel like, you don't feel so great when the air quality is poor. And I think we're going to be into this for the remainder of the summer. All right, I'm going to take that box fan trick. You're over there like MacGyver. I see you. Don't ask me to build it. I'm just doing it. But you know what I'll take with my myrrh? Some golden frankincense. Okay. A little biblical humor? I know. We knew what you meant. Did you? Thank you very much. Oh, it's myrrh. All right.

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