In D.C. and much of Maryland, a Code Red air quality alert was in effect for Friday, while Code Purple was in effect for Western Maryland.

“A Code Purple Air Quality Alert means that air pollution concentrations within the region are very unhealthy for the general population,” the Maryland Department of the Environment said in a statement.

In the Chicago area and its suburbs Friday, a haze continued to blanket the skies after a record-breaking day Thursday, with air quality alerts from the state environmental protection agency and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management extending air quality alerts through Friday evening.

Wildfire smoke “continues to plague the area,” the National Weather Service said Friday, “though improvements in visibility are expected from mid-morning through early afternoon as the wind direction changes and pushes smoke northeastward.”

The city’s beaches and public pools were closed, and a match by the aptly named Chicago Fire professional soccer team was canceled Thursday night, as well as a music performance in Millennium Park.

No word yet on whether the Chicago Cubs will play their rare Friday night game against the Minnesota Twins at Wrigley Field.

The bad news? Smoke is expected to return there this weekend after a brief Friday respite, forecasters say.

Air quality alerts from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy recommended closing windows, minimizing opening of doors and using HVAC systems with MERV-13 filters or higher.

“If you must be outdoors for short periods of time, an N95 or P100 respirator marked with NIOSH is recommended,” that alert said.

The smoke was also covering Northern Virginia as it continued to waft southward Friday morning. It’s expected to reach as far south as Charlotte on Friday afternoon.

Through early Sunday, around 109 million people are forecast to be affected by unhealthy air quality or worse across the U.S.

The Northeast and New England — including areas north of New York City — are expected to get a break from smoky skies on Friday as stronger winds from Quebec, rather than the wildfire zone in western Ontario, blow the smoke away to the south.

A global air quality index showed the early morning pollution in five major North American cities at higher levels than those next on the list, including Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nairobi.

Thick smoke coverage early Saturday across the Mid-Atlantic is expected to gradually decrease throughout the day. That exiting smoke is forecast to blow back into the Northeast and New England.

A storm system approaching from the west will bring rain and possible strong-to-severe thunderstorms to these regions on Saturday, which will interact with the smoke.

Rain can briefly make wildfire smoke smell stronger by dragging smoky air from higher in the atmosphere down to the ground. Once steadier rain develops, however, raindrops begin washing smoke particles out of the air.

By the time the storm passes late Saturday, there will probably be noticeable improvements in air quality across much of the East.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a break in the smoke is forecast around Minneapolis on Friday. That clearing will reach Chicago and Detroit from late Friday into early Saturday. However, this break will probably be short-lived, with new smoke plumes arriving later Saturday.

This new smoke plume could continue blowing eastward on Saturday night and Sunday, with the potential for smoke to return to the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

The World Cup final is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. on Sunday in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Forecast rain in western Ontario on Friday, Monday and Tuesday may reduce smoke concentrations in the source region, so the intensity of subsequent smoke plumes that drift into the U.S. may not be quite as high as the initial ones this week.

The size of Canada’s largest out-of-control fire, near Ontario’s remote Wabakimi Provincial Park, was reported to be 787,802 acres by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center — roughly 18 times the size of the nation’s capital.

Across Canada, 194 out-of-control and large fires were burning as of late Thursday. So far this year, nearly 6 million acres have burned there. In 2023, when apocalyptic smoke reached the Northeast, more than four times that amount of land area had already burned in Canada.

Fires in northern Minnesota, which were also contributing to the smoke plumes, had burned more than 63,000 acres.

After experiencing a data-halting “anomaly” on Wednesday, NOAA’s main satellite used to monitor these fires, called GOES-19, was successfully restarted Thursday afternoon.

That meant tracking of the fires with this satellite was again possible, as real-time imagery of conditions across North America flowed in early Friday.

Thunderstorms rumbling across Oregon, Washington and Idaho on Thursday appear to have sparked more wildfires.

“The wildfire situation across North America just got worse. Tens of thousands of lightning strikes across the Pacific Northwest has ignited dozens of new wildfires across Oregon and Washington,” wrote forecaster Colin McCarthy on Thursday evening.

Smoke from these fires is forecast to drift around eastern parts of Oregon and Washington as well as western and northern Idaho into the weekend.