Fire Weather This Week
Hot and dry conditions return to the inland Pacific NW today. Tuesday and Wednesday will get even hotter, and dry thunderstorms are expected east of the Cascades, posing lightning ignition risks. There may be some precipitation in areas, but fire weather will remain elevated. We expect slight cooling on Thursday but fire danger will remain high as we approach a drier and hotter weekend.
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Fires in Oregon
The East Evans Creek fire in southwest Oregon, north of Medford, has been producing significant smoke the past few days, with large plumes seen in satellite imagery. The fire has burned nearly 4,000 acres but there has been a very large firefighter response, with over 1,000 people working the fire, actively protecting homes, and using aircraft to drop both fire retardant and water.
Other wildfires of note (Anthony, Salmon, and Olive Butte) are clustered around the North Fork John Day Wilderness Area in northeast Oregon. Incident management teams are working hard on these fires but more activity is expected this week.
Brunswick Complex in BC
The Brunswick Complex in BC received small amounts of precipitation over the weekend, which helped limit activity when coupled with the cooler temperatures. Forest fuels remain dry and warm and dry weather will build early this week, but some precipitation may materialize on Thursday night.
Smoke Aloft This Morning
Fire in the Northwest Territories are producing copious amounts of smoke, with bands aloft seen as far south as Oregon in satellite imagery this morning. This isn't a concern for our region, and there is no evidence of smoke mixing down to the surface.
So, where is the haze that we see in north central Washington coming from (Brewster area)? Is that from Canada or the B and O fire or ??
ReplyDeleteIt's likely that the deep mixing heights in the late afternoon allowed a little of that remnant smoke aloft from the NW Territories to mix down into that area. Looks like it contributed a few micrograms with higher elevation locations seeing the most.
DeleteThanks so much for your reply! I love this blog!!!
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