The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday warned that flights especially in the Northeast were being impacted by haze and smoke from wildfires raging in Canada.
On Wednesday morning the FAA tweeted “Traffic Report: [smoke] and haze reported in Washington, DC,” Newark Liberty Airport, JFK and Laguardia airports in New York and Philadelphia International Airport, adding that flights might be impacted as far south as Florida.
On Wednesday afternoon the FAA did lift an earlier ground stop at La Guardia, but said that the agency had “slowed traffic to and from the New York City area airports due to reduced visibility from wildfire smoke,” in a statement, adding that it would “adjust the volume of traffic to account for the rapidly changing conditions.”
As of 2:45pm ET, some 120 U.S. flights had been canceled and over 1,900 more had been delayed, according to tracker FlightAware.
More than 100 wildfires were burning across the Canadian border in Quebec and Ottawa Wednesday, charring more than 9.3 million acres so far.
The EPA issued air quality alerts impacted New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Delaware, Maryland and even St. Louis.
