What does 'cloying smoke' mean?

I understand "cloying" to mean something good that becomes distasteful in excess.

Here is a sentence I read today from this article:

But the aerial assault on the stubborn blaze, which blanketed much of the New Orleans area with cloying smoke for a third straight day, is unlikely to extinguish the fire or end the smoke quickly, Landrieu said.

So when I read "cloying smoke" I assume the author intends to portray smoke as pleasurable in limited quantities? Is this just an idiom? Help me make sense of it. From a google search it appears the phrase is not uncommon.

The word "cloying" doesn't necessarily imply that the thing referred to is pleasant in small quantities. "Cloying" also means:

Cloying: 1.Unpleasantly excessive

This dictionary defines that "cloying" can be used to mean "unpleasant due to excess", without implying that the thing is pleasant in small quantities.

The applicable definition that the OALD gives is:

so sweet that it is unpleasant

Merriam Webster states similarly that:

disgusting or distasteful by reason of excess

I think that Merriam Webster's dictionary definition is applicable here. Smoke, in large quantities, is disgusting while a small amount may be tolerable. The definition does not imply that the thing described is pleasant in small quantities, only that it isn't intolerable.