LANSING, Mich. — Residents express health concerns as smoke from Canadian wildfires leads to unhealthy air quality levels in the Lansing area.
Poor air quality from Canadian wildfires is forcing many Lansing residents to stay indoors and causing health concerns for vulnerable populations.
"It does concern me," said Lansing city council member Adam Hussain, who noted the air quality is affecting his family.
"I have young girls, daughters that have to get up every single day, and they are doing things like cross country practice and band practice, and they're struggling through that."
"My 88-year-old grandmother who I help to take care of along with the rest of my family, is struggling a little bit as well," Hussain said.
The deteriorating air quality has more neighbors staying inside. Lansing resident Debbie Listemin shared how it's impacting her family members with respiratory issues.
"I have some family members who worry about it more, and they have breathing issues when it happens, and they take more of their medications and things for it," Listemin said.
• Canadian wildfire smoke has created unhealthy air quality conditions in Lansing
• Local residents, including children and the elderly, are experiencing respiratory difficulties
• Meteorologists explain high-pressure systems are trapping smoke over the Great Lakes region
Watch below:
Fox 47 Meteorologist Bryan Bachman explained the cause of the smoke affecting the region's air quality.
"It's been a few days' worth of these very smoky conditions ever since Thursday, but especially Friday and into the weekend. And the reason being is we've had these larger concentrations and plumes of wildfire smoke from a broad area of central Canada where these fires are burning," Bachman said.
"The high pressure that has settled in over the past few days and quieted the weather down also helped to drag a lot of that smoke in over the Great Lakes, and since high pressure systems tend to bring quite stable weather and lighter winds. There's no wind to move out the smoke, so those higher concentrations of unhealthy levels of smoke, like we saw today, can linger at the surface," Bachman said.
Bachman advises that if an air quality alert is active, residents should take caution when going outside. You can check to see if there's an air quality alert on Fox47news.com.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
