• by Ray Schultz , June 8, 2023

The dramatic smoke pollution seen in the Northeastern United States over the last few days has prompted a surge in readership for articles covering the topic.

For instance, interest in “wildfires” has increased by 3.6 million page views from June 6 to June 7, Taboola reports. 

These increases were reported over traffic seen during the past 45 days:

Wildfires—5,086% 

Air quality—4,539%

Quebec—1,112% 

Smoke—266%

The spike in interest coincides with the blanketing of U.S. cities from smoke created by Canadian wildfires. Most topics peaked on Wednesday, the day New York City—to name only one U.S. location—was covered with an orange haze. 

Taboola studies global news readership trends based across tens of thousands of news publishers.