Wildfire Smoke, Haze Return To Rhode Island: What To Know

RHODE ISLAND — Smoke and haze from Canada’s long-burning wildfires are prompting a new round of air quality alerts in Rhode Island and elsewhere in North America.

Winds were expected to blow some from the Canadian wildfires back into the Northeast on Monday, resulting in some haze, according to the National Weather Service.

The air quality index in Providence was logged at around 33 Monday afternoon, which is within the low-risk level, according to airnow.gov. Levels were higher on Sunday, with levels reaching the moderate index of 63.

Due to the fires, the entire state was put under an air quality advisory back in June, when monitoring forecasts showed an unhealthy level of fine particles at all three of Rhode Island's monitoring stations.

Smoke and haze weren’t expected to obscure city skylines, as they did in June, but even moderate air quality can be unhealthy for some individuals.

Early Monday, the worst air quality in the country was just off the East Coast, according to a visualization of the airnow.gov data by The New York Times. Most coastal areas from Florida to the Northeast had moderate air quality.

The Canada wildfire season started early this year, and above-average wildfire activity is expected to continue through October in some places. The United States has seen very little wildfire activity this year, although the potential for wildfires through October is above-average in parts of the Pacific Northwest, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and some Mid-Atlantic states.