(VIDEO) Extreme Wildfire Smoke Sparks US-Canada Political Clash as Air Quality in Toledo Tops 800 on Thursday

Smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning across Canada and Minnesota is expected to darken skies again Friday, prolonging a stretch of dangerous air quality across the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast that has now spilled into a diplomatic dispute between the United States and Canada.

Air quality readings reached extreme levels in parts of the Midwest on Thursday. Toledo, Ohio, recorded an Air Quality Index reading that soared above 800 around 5:30 p.m., far exceeding the standard 0-to-500 scale typically used to measure pollution and well past the threshold of 300 that officially classifies air as hazardous. Milwaukee and Detroit also registered AQI levels above 500 on Thursday, according to AirNow, the government-run monitoring service. By Friday morning, conditions had eased somewhat in several cities but remained severe: Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee all posted hazardous readings above 300 as of 6:30 a.m., while New York City registered an unhealthy reading of 185, and Philadelphia and Cleveland recorded very unhealthy readings around 260.

Forecasters said an advancing weather system was expected to help clear some of the smoke and stifling heat from parts of the Northeast later Friday. But cities closer to the fires, including Toledo, Detroit and Milwaukee, are likely to continue contending with the acrid smell of smoke and sky-tinting plumes through the weekend, with conditions across the Great Lakes potentially remaining heavy at times, particularly Saturday.

The persistent smoke has ignited a political confrontation between American lawmakers and the Canadian government. Four Republican members of Congress from Michigan sent a letter Wednesday to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, criticizing the country’s management of its forests and warning that the United States would act on its own if Canada did not take additional steps to address the fires. Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno said he plans to introduce legislation next week aimed at penalizing Canada, describing the situation as “this atrocity.” Michigan state lawmaker Aric Nesbitt escalated the rhetoric further on social media Thursday, invoking annexation language previously used by President Trump and telling Canada to “learn to manage your forests” unless it wanted to “become the 51st state.”

Carney responded to the criticism Thursday, telling reporters in French that fighting climate change is the responsibility of every country, including the United States. He did not directly address the congressional letter, and it remained unclear as of late Thursday whether he had formally received it. Separately, Carney acknowledged the toll the fires have taken domestically, telling reporters during a visit to an armored vehicle factory in London, Ontario, that thousands of Canadians’ lives had been upended by wildfires burning across the country. He noted that Canada’s federal government has limited authority over the wildfire response, since forest management falls primarily under provincial jurisdiction, with Ottawa’s role largely confined to fires on national parks and military land. Carney said the federal government was providing search-and-rescue aircraft through the Royal Canadian Air Force and had deployed helicopters through an intergovernmental firefighting agency, adding that his government stood ready to provide further assistance as needed.

The dispute has drawn attention to the shared, cross-border nature of North American wildfire smoke. U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan native, struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post Wednesday, saying the wildfire challenge “knows no borders” and that the U.S. would continue coordinating closely with Canada as it has for more than four decades of shared wildfire emergencies. Notably, the flow of smoke across the border has not run in only one direction. In September 2020, wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington state burned more than 5 million acres and sent thick smoke drifting north into Canada, eroding air quality in cities including Vancouver for weeks. The U.S. National Interagency Fire Center reported Thursday that more than 150 new fires had been reported nationwide the previous day, including six new large fires, with firefighters working to contain more than four dozen large fires burning across the country. A Canadian helicopter pilot, Nicholas Dale, 56, died Sunday in a crash while assisting with wildfire suppression efforts in Colorado, prompting Gov. Jared Polis to call him “a heroic firefighting pilot.”

Much of the current wave of smoke originates from fires burning in northwestern Ontario near Thunder Bay, a city roughly an hour’s drive north of Minnesota, with additional fires burning around Fort Frances, Dryden, Nipigon and Sioux Lookout. Ontario has struggled for years to stay within its wildfire-fighting budget. The province budgeted 135 million Canadian dollars for emergency firefighting in 2025 but ultimately spent more than double that amount, 271 million Canadian dollars, by year’s end. This year’s budget was increased to 150 million Canadian dollars, an amount critics say still falls short of recent actual spending. Ontario Premier Doug Ford defended his government’s firefighting funding Thursday, telling reporters in Windsor that his administration would “not spare an expense, not one single penny” and that firefighting funding had more than doubled since he took office in 2018. Marit Stiles, leader of Ontario’s opposition New Democratic Party, pushed back on that characterization in a video posted to social media, accusing Ford of allowing the province’s wildland firefighting force to shrink over successive years despite warnings from firefighters.

Ontario’s emergency preparedness minister, Jill Dunlop, said Thursday morning that the province had formally asked the federal government to help evacuate 15 remote communities under threat from the fires, including the potential deployment of Canadian soldiers. Provinces have also been leaning on each other for support, with Alberta currently providing 94 firefighters and support workers to assist in Ontario, reversing a similar arrangement from last year when large numbers of Ontario firefighters traveled west to help fight fires in Alberta.

Health officials have urged residents across the affected region to take precautions as the smoke lingers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said children, pregnant women and people with respiratory conditions such as asthma face the greatest risk, advising these groups to stay indoors, keep windows closed and run air filtration systems where available. Officials have also recommended wearing a mask, ideally an N95 rather than a cloth or surgical mask, when the Air Quality Index climbs above 200, and have urged pet owners to limit their animals’ time outdoors and wipe them down after exposure to reduce lingering pollutants on their fur.