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NYC officials preparing for Canadian wildfire smoke after widely panned response last year
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published May 30, 2024
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Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published May 30, 2024
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New York City officials say they have updated their plan for responding to hazardous smoke from Canadian wildfires, following last summer’s sluggish response to the city’s worst air quality in recent memory.
“It was really something amazing to see how something so far away could impact our city and impact the breathing of everyday New Yorkers, even from 5,000 miles away,” Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference on Thursday.
The mayor’s amazement came across in the city’s response to the crisis last year, which lawmakers and others widely criticized as flat-footed and inadequate — specifically for a city with high populations of elderly residents and people with asthma. As the skies turned orange, Adams waited a full day to hold a briefing on the wildfire smoke even while admitting he phoned family members to tell them to stay indoors. Administration officials argued at the time that the smoke was an unprecedented event and was beyond their control.
“What we should have done, put out the fires? Come on,” Adams said on Fox 5 at the time.
This year, they say it will be different.
The mayor said the city had incorporated an unspecified “new technology” into its response and that serious air quality concerns will now trigger changes within hours for schools and outdoor events as well as notifications for the public to wear high-quality face masks.
Adams also said that city officials are also preparing to distribute free face masks under dangerous conditions — a step that many said came too late last June when emergency room visits for people with asthma symptoms skyrocketed.
Thursday’s preemptive warning to New Yorkers comes as Canadian officials have warned that the upcoming wildfire season could be “catastrophic” and “more explosive” than last year’s. Local climate experts have said New Yorkers should expect wildfire smoke to become the “new norm.”
Zach Iscol, the city’s commissioner for emergency management, addressed the conditions in Canada on Thursday.
“It looks like there are a lot of very dry areas of Canada right now,” he told reporters. “That can lead to increased amounts of smoke when you have those types of wildfires.”
Iscol said the city had consulted with officials in San Francisco and other cities on how they prepare for wildfire smoke and updated its response plan to ensure better coordination between agencies and target public alerts to vulnerable residents.
Adams began the press conference by announcing that the city would add more cooling centers this summer amid hotter temperatures due to climate change.
Around 350 New Yorkers die as a result of heat each summer, according to city officials.
The mayor announced a new interactive map of cooling centers, which New Yorkers would be able to access next week. He said the number of cooling centers were now expanded and would include places where residents could take their pets.
In 2022, a city comptroller report found that at least half of the 542 cooling centers were listed as closed during a weekend heatwave.
The issue of cooling centers exposed a political thorn for Adams: Public libraries are among the spaces traditionally used as cooling centers, but the mayor’s budget cuts have forced most branches to close on Sundays.
“We're still in a budget negotiation,” Adams said when asked how the closures would affect New Yorkers’ access to cooling centers. “We don't know what the final results are.”
“Wherever folks need to find cooling, we will have spaces for them,” he added.
Tagged
air quality
wildfire
eric adams
Health and Science
Elizabeth Kim
Elizabeth Kim is a reporter on the People and Power desk who covers mayoral power. She previously covered the pandemic, housing, redevelopment and public spaces. A native of Queens, she speaks fluent Mandarin. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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