As Smoke Ready Week comes to a close, we’d like to review some important information for the upcoming wildfire season. Luckily, if you’re reading this, you know where to find the Washington Smoke Blog – the state’s one-stop-shop for wildfire smoke information.
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Smoke over Mt. Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest (USFS) |
Navigating the Smoke Blog
At the top of the Smoke Blog, you’ll see a map with Air Quality Index (AQI) values from monitors and sensors across the region. The colors and numerical values indicated by each sensor/monitor reflect "nearly" current air quality conditions, called the NowCast AQI (See section below for more information about the NowCast AQI). By moving the slider in the top left corner of the map, you can view an air quality forecast for the next 5 days. Smoke conditions can change quickly, so remember to check the forecast for daily updates.
Below the map, there are several tabs. These are pages with more information about specific topics, including air monitoring, health impacts, and regional wildfire contacts. There is also a tab with information about wildfire smoke, health risks, and the AQI in Spanish (“En Español”).
Under these tabs is the main section of the blog. The newest post will be at the top. If you have a question or comment, you can put it in the comments section of a blog post. Click “Comments” at the bottom of a post to open the comments section.
We monitor and respond to questions and comments during business hours: Monday – Friday, 8 am – 5 pm.
To the right of the blog’s main section is a column with additional links, including burn ban information, National Weather Service advisories, and archived posts.
Smoke resources
The Smoke Blog is an excellent place to find all the resources you might need during wildfire season. We know there's lots of information out there – especially when fires and smoke get bad. Everything posted here is backed by wildfire, smoke, and health experts across several public agencies.
In addition to the Fire and Smoke map at the top of this page, check out the Washington Air Quality Map and EPA’s AirNow. These are all reliable sources of air quality data.
For more information about health effects, visit the Department of Health’s Smoke from Fires page. DOH also has a helpful page about portable air cleaners.
Below is a list of a few more key resources for wildfire and smoke season:
• Watch Duty – Wildfire Maps and Alerts
• How to make your own clean air fan (video)
NowCast AQI
Wildfire smoke can cause rapid air quality
deterioration. Yet different air quality reporting sites publish data at
different intervals. Agency air monitors report the hourly averaged data once
an hour. When smoke rolls into an area, air quality maps will not receive the data until the following hour.
State and Federal air quality maps use these data to
calculate a ‘NowCast’ value, which relates current and previous hourly PM2.5
concentrations to the Air Quality Index, resulting in the color scale you see
on the map. The Fire and Smoke map (shown above), Washington State Department
of Ecology (AirQualityWA - SiteMap), and AirNow (airnow.gov)
report the NowCast value.
Adverse health effects depend not only on the amount of smoke in the air, but the length of time a person is exposed. The NowCast value
incorporates both these factors to provide a more accurate risk assessment. Visit
NowCastFactSheet2D_EPA.pub
for more information on NowCast AQI and how it is calculated.
In contrast, the Purple Air real-time map (https://map.purpleair.com/air-quality-standards-us-epa-aqi)
provides near instantaneous air quality depending on the averaging
period chosen by the user. The Purple Air data on this map are not subject to
quality control and validation and therefore may not be accurate, however the Purple Air sensors, in aggregate, provide a decent snapshot of instantaneous air quality conditions.