HAZE OBSCURES BUILDINGS along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Chicago on Wednesday. It's not fog that's blanketing the skies across the Chicago area this week — it's haze from Canadian wildfires, which, along with higher ozone levels is continuing to create low visibility conditions and lead to Air Quality Alerts throughout the area. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian wildfires will send worsening smoky air across the country and neighboring United States in coming days after recent heavy rains failed to fall in areas of Quebec where the fires are most active, officials said Wednesday.

Drifting smoke from the wildfires has lowered curtains of haze on broad swaths of Canada and the United States, pushing into southern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and moving into parts of West Virginia.

Canadian officials say it is the nation’s worst wildfire season ever and they expect air quality to remain a concern through the summer, as long as the fires continue.

It started early on drier-than-usual ground and accelerated very quickly, exhausting firefighting resources across the country, fire and environmental officials said.

Environment and Climate Change Canada Meteorologist Steven Flisfeder said smoke will migrate across Quebec and Ontario over the next few days, and that air quality will deteriorate as a result.

“As long as the fires are burning and the smoke is in the atmosphere it is going to be a concern not just for Canadians but Americans as well,” Flisfeder said.

Flisfeder said the smoky, hazy skies will persist unless rainfall provides sufficient help to firefighters in controlling the blazes. “It’s important to note that the highest amounts of rain were not received in those areas where most active forest fires are,” Flisfeder said.

The Detroit area woke up Wednesday to some of the worst air quality in the United States as smoke from Canada’s wildfires settled over most of the Great Lakes region.

The EPA’s AirNow.gov site showed cities including Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, Ohio, had “very unhealthy air” as of Wednesday afternoon. A wider circle of unhealthy air spread into Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky.

Elsewhere, Milwaukee County Emergency Medical Services has seen a spike in calls for residents with respiratory complaints, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Office of Emergency Management data show a disproportionate amount of calls for respiratory issues – 54.8% – have been for Black people in Milwaukee, according to the newspaper. Milwaukee County’s population is 27.1% Black.

Earlier this month, smoke from the wildfires blanketed the U.S. East Coast for days.

Another round of drifting smoke from the wildfires was moving through western Pennsylvania and central New York and headed toward the Mid-Atlantic, said National Weather Service meteorologist Byran Jackson.

Meanwhile, NASA is reporting that smoke from wildfires in northern Quebec has reached Europe. The American space agency said satellite imagery from Monday showed smoke extending across the North Atlantic Ocean to the Iberian Peninsula, France and other parts of western Europe.

There are 490 fires burning nationally, with 255 of them considered to be out of control. Quebec’s forest fire prevention agency is reporting 110 active fires.

Canada has already surpassed the record for area burned. Nearly every province in Canada has fires burning. A record 30,000 square miles (80,000 square kilometers) of Canada has burned, an area nearly as large as South Carolina, according to the Canadian government.

“This season has been unprecedented,” Flisfeder said.

Ontario’s chief medical officer Dr. Kieran Moore suggested people get into the daily habit of checking air quality this summer.

“That’s our new normal now is to be looking at all of those parameters,” Moore said.

The hazy skies and acrid air were obvious in Canada’s largest city of Toronto, where child care centers and the school board suspended outdoor activities.

Almost 1,200 vulnerable people from Cree communities are among the evacuees who have fled northern Quebec because of wildfires and smoke. Dr. Francois Provost of the Cree health board said the evacuation process has gone relatively well, but he adds that the situation poses particular health, logistical and cultural challenges.