The 2024 Washington wildfire season is thankfully behind us. However, wood burning for residential heating is a concern during the cold seasons when temperature inversions and light winds cause smoke to stagnate. Valley communities are more prone to this and often experience impaired air. Thus, air quality burn bans may be called for your area in the coming months.
Washington Smoke Blog
Welcome to the Washington Smoke blog, a partnership between state, county, and federal agencies, and Tribes. We coordinate to collectively share information for Washington communities affected by wildfire smoke.
Washington Smoke Map
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
See you in Summer 2025!
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Inversions and wildfire smoke to our south
It's October, and that means it's inversion season in Washington.
Although air quality has been GOOD for most of the state, Yakima has maintained MODERATE air quality since Monday evening. Similar readings were observed further down the Yakima Valley into the Tri-Cities as well. The effects of this inversion could be seen from the Yakima Air Terminal webcam.
Should fire activity produce sizeable smoke plumes, some smoke could drift into Washington. It's unlikely to have widespread impacts on air quality, but it is something to monitor as wildfire season seemingly refuses to end in the northwest.
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Fall Has Arrived - Is Fire Season Over?
It's late September and we've now passed the Fall equinox. With the longer, cooler nights and occasional precipitation chances, fire season is on its way out. But we're not completely out of the woods yet.
Strong Winds Today
In western Washington, this will bring periods of steady moderate-heavy rain -- especially in the Olympics and North Cascades. Good for knocking out any residual fire danger in those areas!
In eastern Washington, however, showers will be hit or miss. Most areas will not receive a wetting rain. Instead, strong winds are expected with potential for gusts near 40-45 mph this afternoon.
The wind combined with low relative humidity and warm temperatures east of the Cascades is spiking the 'Hot-Dry-Windy' index well above the 95th percentile for this time of year.
With that in mind, we'll need to keep an eye out for any new fires in some of the grass and sagebrush across the Basin. There is potential for rapid fire spread if anything sparks up. Additionally, areas of blowing dust and reduced visibility are possible with the strong winds.
Looking Ahead
Forest fire season will be coming to an end rapidly, especially on the west side of the state where significant precipitation is received. In eastern Washington, winds calm down after today, but dry weather continues through the weekend with additional strong winds possible next week. We generally won't be able to rule out additional fires in the grass/sagebrush through October, depending on weather and ignitions (or lack of ignitions). On the bright side, grass fires are typically put out quicker and have less smoke impacts than forest fires. We'll continue to monitor closely until fire season is completely over!
Thursday, September 19, 2024
2024 wildfire season: air quality in review
Although a few fires continue to burn in the state, smoke levels remain low, and the forecasted weather is not conducive to wildfire growth. Let's take a look at how this wildfire season's air quality compares to previous years.
In terms of the number of smoke-impacted days, this summer looked more like the relatively smoke-free summers of 2016 and 2019 rather than more recent years. The summer wasn't smoke-free, but we avoided significant, widespread, and prolonged smoke impacts. One way to put this year in perspective is to review the total number of smoky days at air quality monitoring sites in Washington since 2012, broken up into region and only including days when the air quality reached Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups or worse:
For all regions, the number of smoky days this summer was much less than previous years. There were only 7 days of Unhealthy air quality in the state this summer--that's from 115 air quality monitors and sensors that continuously measure PM2.5. To put that number into context, the 2020-2023 seasons averaged 206 days of Unhealthy or worse air quality. Looking a little further, there were only 413 hours (about 12% of the total monitoring hours) of Unhealthy or worse air quality this summer. That's an order of magnitude less than the number of Unhealthy or worse hours in 2023 (3,129 hours). About 20% of those 413 hours were associated with 4th of July fireworks.This wildfire season Washington largely escaped significant smoke impacts from neighboring states and Canada. While there were a few large wildfires in Central and Eastern WA (i.e., the Pioneer, Williams Mine, Swawilla, Retreat, Cougar Creek Fires), nearby communities were the most impacted. Favorable meteorological conditions were also on our side, including early season precipitation and a lack of significant easterly wind events. Quick actions by firefighters also helped to minimize smoke production from active fires. Thanks to everyone that recreated safely during critical fire weather conditions.
Friday, September 13, 2024
Weekly Smoke Recap and Forecast Outlook
Weekly Recap
Air quality remained Moderate to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups for portions of central and eastern Washington on Monday, but started to turn Good by the end of the day.
After seeing some of the worst air quality in the state over the weekend, conditions did improve in southeast Washington. Due to proximity to fires in Idaho and eastern Oregon, however, Clarkston once again saw air quality regress to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups on Wednesday.
Even for those that saw little or no rain at all are finishing the week with Good air quality and much cooler temperatures than this time last week. Higher relative humidity is also keeping fire activity low in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
Smoke Outlook
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Protecting crop workers under the sun and smoke
In the past two years, the Washington State Department of Labor
& Industries (L&I) implemented new permanent rules designed to protect
outdoor workers from health impacts related to heat and wildfire smoke.
In August, a team led by Flunker and Dr. Coralynn Sack,
an assistant professor in DEOHS and the UW Department of Medicine, headed out
to several apple farms in Washington’s Yakima Valley to get a clearer picture
of how these stressors affect crop workers’ health and how the new rules are
being implemented in the field.
Read the full story
Monday, September 9, 2024
Air quality improvement after a hazy weekend
After a weekend of hazy skies, air quality throughout the state is improving as onshore flow pushes the smoke away. Most of the region observed moderate air quality over the weekend, with a few locations experiencing a few hours of USG and Unhealthy air quality.
Higher elevations observed smoke as it was transported aloft from Oregon and began mixing down to the surface--the air quality sensor at the Mt. Rainier Visitor Center observed increased PM2.5 concentrations starting last Thursday.
Friday, September 6, 2024
Friday Smoke Snapshot and Updated Weekend Outlook
Friday Smoke Snapshot
Wildfire smoke over Washington as seen from the GOES-West satellite Friday afternoon. |
To learn more or find out if there’s an Air Quality Advisory in place for your location, check with your local clean air agency. Air Quality Advisories may be put in place, removed, or extended at any time.
For Air Quality Advisories on Reservations in Washington, visit: https://www.epa.gov/farr/burn-bans-indian-reservations-id-or-and-wa
A closer look at some of the monitors in the state:
As smoke moved north and west from Idaho and Oregon, Seattle saw a shift from Good to Moderate conditions Thursday continuing through Friday.
Eventually, westerly winds will push cleaner air onshore. This will be a gradual process, and widespread Moderate air quality will likely persist into Sunday night or early Monday for western Washington. Smoke impacts may worsen east of the Cascades Sunday through Monday morning with some locations seeing AQI rise into the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups range, mainly across southern Washington. Northern Washington should remain Good to Moderate. Eventually, air quality is expected to improve statewide Monday afternoon into Tuesday.
We are still expecting isolated thunderstorms to develop over the Cascades this weekend. Any new lightning-induced starts may bring new local air quality issues.
Thursday, September 5, 2024
Smoke Update and Outlook
Smoke Situation
While things have been relatively quiet on fires in Washington, recent warmer and drier weather has increased fire activity and smoke production around fires in Oregon and Idaho.
Light, offshore winds are expected through Saturday which may bring light/moderate amounts of smoke over southern and western Washington. Air quality is expected to be Moderate for much of western Washington with some portions of southwest Washington seeing periods of Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups. New fire starts or an increase in smoke output from existing fires could lead to locally worse air quality. Smoke is expected to clear gradually this weekend.
Air Quality Advisories are currently in place for the following counties: Clark, Cowlitz, Lewis, Skamania, and Wahkiakum.
To learn more or find out if there’s an Air Quality Advisory in place for your location, check with your local clean air agency. Air Quality Advisories may be put in place or removed at any time.
For Air Quality Advisories on Reservations in Washington, visit: https://www.epa.gov/farr/burn-bans-indian-reservations-id-or-and-wa
Forecast Outlook
Relief from the heat and the smoke will come in phases from west to east. The first phase begins Friday as the seasonably strong ridge overhead begins to weaken. This will allow cooler onshore flow to reach the immediate coast, but these effects will be slow to move inland.
East-southeast winds will continue to transport smoke from fires in Oregon into Washington through early Saturday, but an approaching upper-level disturbance will continue to chip away at the ridge, further weakening it and pushing it to the east. This will allow temperatures west of the Cascades to begin to cool, and smoke impacts will begin to lessen.
Fire weather outlook from the Storm Prediction Center highlighting the potential for dry thunderstorms in the Cascades on Saturday
This system does come with concern for fire danger. Isolated thunderstorms will be possible Saturday afternoon through early Sunday in the Cascades. Although the smoke situation will be improving with increasing onshore flow, fuels will be very receptive to new lightning ignitions.
Onshore flow will bring cooler but still above average temperatures to western Washington on Sunday. Central and eastern Washington will remain warm with air quality concerns lingering. A stronger belt of westerly winds will impact the state on Monday as a system passes to our north. This will further alleviate widespread wildfire smoke, but at the same time will elevate fire weather conditions east of the Cascades.