Smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles north in Canada enveloped the East Coast of the United States this past week, creating apocalyptic orange skies and plunging the Air Quality Index into "Very Unhealthy" and "Hazardous" levels. 

While the sight of smoke-filled cities has become more common in recent years, it's typically in the West, not the East.

According to Robert Wilson, associate professor of geography and the environment, the fires in Quebec show that the consequences of climate change won't remain in remote regions north of the international border. 

"Before this week, it was easy for those of us in the East to think that suffocating wildfire smoke was solely a West Coast problem," says Wilson. "But no longer. The smoke clouding our skies, scratching our throats and watering our eyes shows we’re all Westerners now."

Read more in Wilson's article, "When it comes to wildfires, we’re all Westerners now," published in The Hill.