July 12, 2007
Fires in Pacific Northwest
Cooler temperatures in the midwestern and eastern U.S. brought improved air quality, with some light haze in the southeast. The Pacific Northwest, however, is very smoky. This afternoon, a fire in central Oregon put one ground-based monitor (located at, appropriately, Burns, OR) up to 82 ug/m3 for a 24 hour average fine particle concentration (code red), peaking at 367 ug/m3 at about 5 am and again at 239 ug/m3 at about 8 am (data source from Oregon DEQ). Note also the clouds and haze all across Idaho, which extend into Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado in the MODIS Aqua image.
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