Blazes across several Canadian provinces and territories pose health risks to Canadians and their southern neighbours.Smoke from wildfires burning in Canada has triggered air quality alerts over the border in the United States.Several blazes continued to rage across Canada on Saturday, sending smoke wafting over several states in the US Midwest and bringing warnings of unhealthy air for at least the third day.Air quality alerts were in effect in the US states of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as eastern Nebraska and parts of Indiana and Illinois.Conditions were especially dire in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the Switzerland-based air quality monitoring database IQAir reporting that the US city had some of the worst air pollution in the world since Friday.The Air Quality Index (AQI), a system used to communicate how much pollution is in the air, is expected to reach the red or unhealthy category in a large swath of Minnesota, and will likely remain so through Saturday.“We’ve sort of been dealing with this, day in and day out, where you walk outside and you can taste the smoke, you can smell it,” said Joe Strus, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area.Forecasters warned that smoky skies would remain across the Midwest for much of Saturday, but could start to dissipate before spreading as far south as Tennessee and Missouri.The poor air quality poses particular risks …
