By Dr. Layne McDonald What Happened: Thick smoke from nearly 900 active Canadian wildfires : over 200 of them out of control : has drifted south, triggering air quality alerts across at least 18 states from Minnesota to New Hampshire to Virginia. Major cities including New York, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. have reported hazardous air quality readings, with some areas like Milwaukee and Detroit surpassing AQI levels of 500 and 600. In Philadelphia, off