Joe Dwinell: Smoke from wildfires sweeping east all the way to Massachusetts

Sep. 15--The hellish wildfires ravaging the west are sweeping east.

A national "Hazard Mapping System" of smoke from the blazes in California, Washington and Oregon show the fallout hitting upstate New York and even reaching Massachusetts.

"Yes, we will see the smoke but it will be very minimal," a National Weather Service meteorologist in Taunton told the Herald Monday. Traces of the wildfire smoke will be reflected during sunset and sunrise, he added.

But it's nothing like the choking air pollution seen in the fire zones.

The smoke has blown across the country in two plumes -- one to Michigan all the way to Rochester, New York; the other past Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky to the Mid-Atlantic, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The wildfires out west have killed at least 35 people.

President Trump went to California Monday to see the damage for himself in what is becoming a key political battle with Joe Biden over climate change.

Trump, according to Fox News, called for better forest management, saying: "When trees fall down after a short period of time they become very dry -- really like a matchstick ... and they can explode."

But, Fox added, Biden called his 2020 presidential election rival "a climate arsonist" for not placing the blame squarely on climate change.

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