Massive wildfires in US West bring haze to East Coast

(AP) — Wildfires in the American West, including one burning in Oregon that’s currently the largest in the U.S., are creating hazy skies as far away as New York as the massive infernos spew smoke and ash into the air in columns up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) high.

Oregon’s Bootleg Fire grew to 616 square miles (1,595 square kilometers) — half the size of Rhode Island.

The Dixie Fire, which broke out near the site of the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people in the town of Paradise, ballooned to more than 133 square miles (344 square kilometers), with 15% containment.

In Alpine County, known as the California Alps, the Tamarack Fire caused evacuations of several communities and grew to 61 square miles (158 square kilometers) with no containment.

East Coast was reminiscent of last fall when multiple large fires burning in Oregon in the state’s worst fire season in recent memory choked the local skies with pea-soup smoke but also impacted air quality several thousand miles away.

Monstrous clouds of smoke and ash have risen up to 6 miles into the sky and are visible for more than 100 air miles.

The closure will affect about 2,260 square miles (5,853 square kilometers) of land