CINCINNATI — An Air Quality Alert has been issued for majority of the Tri-State.
The alert runs from midnight tonight through Sunday at midnight for multiple counties.
The counties affected are Butler, Clermont, Hamilton and Warren in Ohio; Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties in Kentucky; and Dearborn County in Indiana.
With the Air Quality Alert in effect, the Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency expects to see levels of ozone in the "unhealthy for sensitive groups" range on the Air Quality Index.
Exposure to smoke can cause health problems for anyone, but certain groups are more at risk including those with heart or lung disease, children, the elderly and pregnant women.
In order to reduce the ozone levels, the agency advises people to take the bus, carpool, bike or walk instead of drive. Other efforts include refueling your vehicle after 8 p.m., withhold from idling your vehicle and avoid using gasoline-powered lawn equipment.
This is the second round of the Tri-State's counties being under Air Quality Alerts due to traveling smoke from wildfires in Canada, despite the fact that the fires are more than 1,000 miles away.
Joy Landry, with the Southwest Ohio Air Quality Agency, previously said that in Greater Cincinnati, we are experiencing elevated levels of particulate matter, which is comprised of microscopic particles.
"Particulate matter is a product of what would have been burned and so all of that smoke gets in the air," Landry said. "Unfortunately, it's affecting our air quality here as well."
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