U.S. Air Quality

More fires in Washington; Smoke aloft over Baltimore

According to EPA, several stations read moderate concentrations throughout the Country. Most of those stations were located in Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Great Plains, as well as Pacific Northwest and California where remnant smoke from fires in Idaho is affecting the air quality (top left). Light to moderately dense smoke could be seen extending from eastern Montana through the Northern Plains and eastward into western Quebec and then southward through the central Plains. This continues to be remnant smoke from the numerous wildfires that are still burning through Washington, Idaho and Montana (top right). Also, numerous wildfires that have been burning over Washington have produced a small area of remnant smoke that can be seen moving towards the northwest this morning and early afternoon (bottom left).
Some interesting numbers: Although this is a near record year for wildfires in the western U.S., this is actually a below average year for fires in British Columbia. British Columbia has seen at least 1,522 separate wildfires start since April 1, 2012 which have consumed 171,493 acres (69,401 hectares). Alberta has had 1,482 wildfires to date burning over 980,091 acres (396,629 hectares). This is an average fire season in terms of number of fires for Alberta with the five year average being 1432, however the area affected by the fires is much larger than average. Nearly the same numbers of fires have actually burned almost twice as much land area, with the average of 598,261 acres (242,108 hectares) (MODIS Web). Finally, light to dense smoke from the west continue to be detected by UMBC Lidar measurements over Baltimore. Different patches of smoke have been observed extending up to 6 kilometers throughout the day (bottom right)