Statewide forecast — June 5: Highway 243 fire will "hose down" the Columbia Basin & Spokane with smoke. Rest of the state largely smoke free

The highway 243 fire in Grant County has grown to over 15,000 acres now and is 25% contained. Spokane recorded brief incursions of Unhealthy air yesterday, as high winds sent wavy plumes of smoke to several counties.

Since little smoke concerns exist elsewhere in the state through Friday, the rest of this post will only cover smoke from the Hwy 243 fire.

Strong winds with directional shifts will cause plumes to impact a wide swathe of downwind areas at different times. Not expecting much precipitation to help with firefighting or smoke dissipation. Smoke model animations look like someone is waving a water jet around the Columbia Basin! Here's how some models depict plumes between now and 11AM on Thursday. For those interested, different colors of these ensemble mean forward trajectories correspond to starting heights between 100m and 2000m AGL.

Given the fire growth, it ls likely that several areas will see air quality varying between Moderate and Unhealthy at different times. Worse close to the fires. Generally worse air during the day and slightly lower concentrations at night. Expect this behavior through Thursday.

This blog contains several resources to protect your health during wildfire smoke events. See https://wasmoke.blogspot.com/p/national-interagency-fire-information.html. Stay safe!