St. Albert residents should stay indoors and wear masks outdoors to guard against the wildfire smoke blanketing the city today.
Environment Canada issued a special air quality statement for St. Albert, Edmonton, and much of Sturgeon County at about 10:30 a.m. May 16.
The advisory warned that wildfire smoke was expected to cause poor air quality and reduced visibility in the region for most of Tuesday. The smoke had blown in from the roughly 87 wildfires burning throughout Alberta that day.
The sky was tinged brown over much of St. Albert when the advisory went out, with the city’s air quality monitoring station predicting that the air quality index would reach 7 (high risk) by noon. Environment Canada says at-risk populations such as children, seniors, people with heart or lung disease, and pregnant people should reduce or reschedule strenuous outdoor activities under these conditions.
“Wildfire smoke can be harmful to everyone’s health even at low concentrations,” the advisory read.
Environment Canada said residents should stop or reduce their level of physical activity if they had trouble breathing due to the smoke.
Indoors, residents should keep doors and windows closed if possible and set the fans on their HVAC systems to recirculate the air constantly. They should use the highest-rated MERV filter possible, ideally a MERV-13 or better, and may want to deploy portable HEPA air cleaners. Residents should also avoid smoking, vaping, lighting candles, or frying food indoors.
Outdoors, residents can wear N95 or equivalent masks to filter out fine smoke particles, which were the main health risk from smoke. Environment Canada noted that these masks would not protect people against the other gases in the smoke.
Air quality conditions were expected to clear up Wednesday.
Visit www.airhealth.ca for additional information.
