From his uptown Manhattan home in Morningside Heights, Samir Kumar can usually see skyscrapers downtown. But this week, as smoke from wildfires raging in the western United States and Canada rode the jet stream to the East Coast, the city skyline was blurred out.

“To see wildfires have an actual effect on this coast…I was in disbelief,” says Kumar.

The 29-year-old is asthmatic, and as he ran errands in his neighborhood, he says the air felt thick. He experienced shortness of breath, tightness in his chest, and had to take bigger breaths, but he managed to stave off an asthma attack.

Kumar, whose family is from India, says he’s seen air quality that bad in New Delhi, but never in