Welcome to the Washington Smoke blog, a partnership between state, county, and federal agencies, and Tribes. We coordinate to collectively share info for Washington communities affected by wildfire smoke.
If the air monitoring map doesn't display here, links to additional monitoring maps can be found under the 'Monitoring & Forecasting' tab.
Update 2 (7/13/21): New large fire "Chuweah Creek" north of Coulee Dam, near Nespelem on the Colville Reservation.
Update since posting*: The Dry Gulch Fire has been renamed Lick Creek.
Wildfire season has arrived in the Pacific Northwest and we
have a few fires of note in Washington. The largest is the Dry Gulch
fire in the SE corner of the state. Much of the smoke from this fire is
traveling east today and into Idaho but that was not the case a couple of days
ago when monitors from Dayton to Clarkston and surrounding areas registered smoky
conditions. Dry Gulch has a Type 1 incident management team assigned meaning it’s
recognized as a complex wildfire. We expect a specialist called an Air Resource
Advisor to arrive later in the week to provide some extra focus on air quality
forecasting for the vicinity. The Green Ridge fire is also burning in
the area. Though not in Washington, the Snake River Complex in Idaho is
nearby and could cause smoke issues in Washington depending on wind
direction.
Dry Gulch. IMT1. 2 mi SW of Asotin, WA. Start 7/7.
Full Suppression. Cause: Lightning. 46,352 acres. (+8,129) 20% containment.
Active fire behavior. Grass and brush. Structures threatened. Evacuations in
effect. Road, trail and area closures. Details on Dry Gulch available here: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7615/
Green Ridge. IMT2. 30 mi E of Walla Walla, WA. Start
7/7. Full Suppression. Cause: Lightning. 175 acres (+32). 0% containment.
Active fire behavior. Timber and grass. Road, trail and area closures. Details
on Green Ridge available here: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7628/
Above: Map showing wildfires in the vicinity of SE
Washington for 7/12/2021. Bright red spots show where significant heat has been
detected by satellite in the last 12 hours.
In addition, there are two new fires in Washington that are
not very large at the moment although they are contributing smoke to the Methow
Valley area from Mazama to Brewster and over to Omak. The Varden fire is
close enough to the road that the State Dept. of Transportation has closed Hwy
20. Got Facebook? The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Facebook page is a
great source for local fire information. https://www.facebook.com/OkaWenNF/
Varden. 5 mi southwest of Mazama, WA. Start 7/11.
Monitor/Confine/Full Suppression. Cause: Lightning. 700 acres. 0% contained.
Moderate fire behavior. Timber.
Cedar Creek. 5 mi southwest of Mazama, WA. Start 7/8.
Full Suppression. Cause: Lightning. 75 acres. 0% contained. Moderate fire
behavior. Timber.
Above: Map showing wildfires in the vicinity of Mazama, WA on 7/12/2021.
Bright red spots show where significant heat has been detected by satellite in
the last 12 hours.
And there is one more fire in Washington that is causing some
trouble. The Burbank fire near Yakima and Selah is impacting travel on I-82. The
fire seems to be burning mostly in light brush and grass fuels so is not
putting out large amounts of smoke.
Burbank. 8 mi northeast of Yakima, WA. Start 7/10.
Full Suppression. Cause: Unknown. 6,000 acres. 10% contained. Extreme fire
behavior. Grass and brush. Structures threatened. Evacuations in effect. Road,
trail and area closures. Details on Burbank available here: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7650/
Above: Map showing the location of the Burbank fire on 7/12/2021.
Bright red spots show where significant heat has been detected by satellite in
the last 12 hours.
So that concludes the summary of significant wildfires in
Washington as of today. There are also wildfires all around us from British Columbia, to
Oregon, to Idaho but for now at least, most of the smoke from these fires is
staying away with the exception of a little high elevation haze visible on the west
side of the state, and some haze plus low levels of smoke at the surface in NE
Washington.
The best way to help our firefighters this year? Be careful
out there so we can keep human caused fires to a minimum!
Here is yesterday's daily average estimated fine particle pollution map. "Estimated" because it is a satellite- derived product. Satellites can't decipher the height at which smoke is present; they only see all the vertically integrated smoke in the atmosphere. Various algorithms are used to estimate how much of this is present at ground level. Without reading too much into the absolute numbers, we can see where the smoke is coming from and going to.
Give a little
The fires near Asotin (Silcott, Dry Gulch and Lick Creek) are problematic for nearby WA and ID communities (read: export). We expect Moderate to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups air in the area for the next few days.
Take a little
Some smoke from wildfires in southern British Columbia is drifting over the north central part of the state (read: import). While most of it will remain aloft for now, some splotches of Moderate air can't be ruled out this afternoon. Smoke from southern Oregon fires will also fly over the south central and southeastern part of the state tomorrow. Enjoy the pretty sunsets.
Overall synopsis
No other major smoke concerns for now thanks to favorable winds, but those happy-go-lucky days are numbered because new fires are an ongoing concern (see the Red Flag warning). Please do your part to prevent fires.
Satellite imagery and ground- based fine particle pollution monitoring data show that smoke from the Lytton fire in British Columbia and the Lava Fire in northern California is mostly overhead right now. Gray polygons are smoke plumes (darker gray = denser smoke) and the circles/ squares are monitors measuring Good (and some Moderate) air quality.
Forecast models are showing that some of this smoke will make it down to the surface in eastern WA later today. This is also true for the higher terrain of the Cascades. However we're not expecting anything worse than Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups. Please continue to follow the five-day smoke forecast.
We're expecting winds to shift July 4-5, which should improve air quality statewide... if we can avoid any new fires. Local fireworks shows could result in levels as high as Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups near the demonstrations.
Puget Sound lowlands forecast
We do not expect smoke to reach the ground in most of western WA, so air
quality should be mostly Good to Moderate. A few pretty sunsets are possible.
Be Ready to Protect Your Health
Now that wildfires are here, it’s time to be prepared to protect ourselves from the smoke that comes along with them. Stock up on necessary supplies, like MERV 13 filters for DIY box fan filters or upgrading your HVAC system—they fly off the shelf when the smoke gets bad. For more information check out the health tab or visit WA DOH’s Smoke from Fires webpage.
And lastly, a task for everyone
We encourage our readers to submit brief comments explaining creative ways they celebrate our Independence, while minimizing fire and smoke risks. Sometime next week, we'll publish our top picks from the submissions. Have a happy and safe 4th of July!
First, there is no major infusion of wildfire smoke into Western WA. Satellite imagery shows hardly a cloud or wisp of smoke over the last 3 days. However several fine particle pollution monitors have been showing air in the Moderate to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups range.
So whodunit?
The ridge of high pressure over the state giving us this extreme heat is also responsible for forcing air downward and trapping pollutants within a shallow layer. This is known as a subsidence inversion. Since winds are relatively light, all the pollution generated by human activities tends to accumulate over time. But that's not all.
Trees also emit organic gases such as terpenes and isoprene, more so on hot days. These pollutants of biogenic origin undergo various complex chemical reactions in the atmosphere, giving rise to small particles known as Secondary Organic Aerosols (SOA). "Secondary" because the aerosols are not released directly from sources but formed as a result of subsequent physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere. The diurnal nature of the elevated pollution levels over the last few days are consistent with how we expect biogenic SOA to behave. A WSU air quality model is showing the same thing.
Biogenic emissions are also one of the ingredients of ground level ozone, aka "smog" formation. They react with oxides of nitrogen (mostly from traffic and industrial sources) under the right meteorological conditions to form ozone. All those factors came together yesterday and will do so again today to cause high ozone levels in the Cascade Foothills of King and Pierce counties. Expect air to be in the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups or even Unhealthy range on account of this. An Air Quality Alert is in effect.
Skip the tech talk. When will it go away?
Starting tomorrow.
As the thermal trough shifts inland and reduces western WA temperatures somewhat, biogenic emissions reduce and so does SOA formation. So we expect fine particle pollution levels to be around the Good/ Moderate level from tomorrow onward if there are no new fires. Please see the forecast map above. Ozone formation will also relax a bit. [Side note: please do your part to prevent fires during this time of extreme fire risk. There are Red Flag Warnings about this].
What about eastern WA?
A 20,000 acre brushfire near the town of Lind is causing quite a bit of smoke locally. Winds are initially shifting the plumes westward, before driving it toward the Spokane area starting Wednesday. If the fire is still burning, that is. Moderate air is expected, with worse conditions closer to the fire.
Now's the perfect time to get prepared for potential smoke from wildfire in 2021. As we in the Northwest know, wildfire smoke lingering in the air makes it hard to breathe and can cause or worsen health problems. Agencies throughout Washington have partnered to promote Smoke Ready Week, June 14-18. You'll find helpful tips to lessen the impact of smoke at Washington Department of Ecology, Washington Department of Health, Washington Department of Natural Resources, Spokane Clean Air Agency, the Colville Tribe, EPA, and other state and federal partners using the hashtag #SmokeReady2021. Be sure to check out the smoke blogs of our neighbors in Idaho and Oregon too.
The map on this blog's webpage now includes a smoke forecast tool. It adds a layer to the Washington state map and gives the color-coded AQI forecast for every region in Washington. Currently it's a 2-day forecast, but watch for the expanded 5-day smoke forecast within the next week. Now you can plan ahead for that weekend trip to the lake!
Wildfires in WA and most of OR are out and there is no risk of returning to the terrible conditions we endured last month. Fall meteorology is active enough to keep air moving along and prevent a buildup of pollutants.
What to watch for
Northern CA fires are still burning and an occasional whiff of smoke is still possible. Western WA got a small dose earlier this week, causing Moderate air in some areas.
Wintertime wood smoke season is coming and while it almost never gets as bad as what we've just been through, temperature inversions and light winds can cause smoke to stagnate. Valley communities are more prone to this and often experience poor air.
Check if an air quality burn ban has been called for your area (not to be confused with fire safety burn bans).
We recommend our readers keep an eye on the map at the top of this page. It is automatically updated with measured fine particle pollution data and a two-day forecast, year round.
Smoke continues to hover overhead and the previous forecast still holds. As explained there the temperature inversion is still keeping the smoke at bay. We've hardly seen air quality deteriorating beyond Moderate anywhere in the state, or further upwind in Oregon for that matter.
There is fog in the Puget Sound lowlands and this will recur each morning through Sunday. Fog should not be confused with smoke. Here's an illustration of what's what as seen from above, but only an air quality monitor can distinguish between the two at ground level.
Things will stay that way and start to "improve" by Saturday night as a slight wind shift s-l-o-w-l-y disconnects us from the CA smoke late in the weekend. Models are persisting with the inversion in western WA so any residual smoke aloft wont mix down all that much. But inversions also lock in our own local emissions at the surface. Overall, we can expect:
Good to Moderate air in much of the state
Moderate or areas of Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups in the higher terrain of the Olympics and Cascades (hard to pin down what elevation the transition occurs).
Saturday's sunset may not be as colorful
BTW the air quality monitoring data map at the top of this blog has been upgraded to show both the new EPA Fire/ Smoke map that incorporates corrected low-cost sensor data, and our 2-day PM2.5 forecast. Might take a moment to load. If you're using a mobile device, scroll to the bottom of this page and click "View web version" to see this.
There has been some speculation that another bout of Californian smoke will overrun western WA again this week. Thankfully, it now seems like those concerns are a bit overblown.
Highlights
Starting Tuesday evening, there will be a little smoke in western WA. Not expecting populated areas to get worse than Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, although Moderate will be the most common.
Higher elevations will see more smoke.
This will not be a prolonged event. Please keep an eye on the smoke forecast.
Get ready to enjoy some resplendent sunsets
Hardly any impacts expected east of the Cascades
What does the latest satellite picture (10:20AM today) look like?
Smoke is indeed traveling northbound along the Oregon coast now.
What do the models say?
They have their own opinions, some with more merit than others. Discussing with the National Weather Service offices and air quality agencies, we feel that the HRRR smoke model injected too much smoke into the air and is trying to offload a generous portion of that in our backyard. We're not buying it. Most other models are (i) working with less smoke and (ii) keeping a lot of it aloft. This is consistent with satellite imagery, ground based air quality monitoring data and the vertical temperature structure of several models.
Here's what different models think the mixing heights in Olympia will be for the next 72 hours. Black line is the mean of them all.
This means vertical mixing through the atmosphere is confined to a shallow layer, ~400m today at most, 700m max tomorrow and back to about 400m on Thursday. Most of the smoke will be 1-3km above us, so we won't be tapping into the overhead smoke reservoir all that much.
This is a good example of a temperature inversion working in our favor by not allowing smoke aloft to mix down. But inversions also trap pollutants released at the surface within a shallow layer, so we still have to deal with our own gunk in addition to whatever little smoke mixes down.
Will the smoke aloft interfere with Aurora Borealis viewing?
Probably, but there needs to be a good aurora. We returned home disappointed at 2AM this morning and tonight's geomagnetic activity is expected to be no different than yesterday. If a faint glow does appear low on the northern horizon, the smoke will filter some of it out. Going to higher terrain won't help much.
The record-shattering smoke storm of 2020 is now behind us. Rain clouds have replaced the choking fog of smoke that held Washington in a vice for more than a week, and the annual dread of late-summer wildfires appears to have eased.
Before we get back to business as usual, however, we wanted to review what exactly happened in the first three weeks of September, what it did to all of us that were stuck breathing that toxic soup, and what we can learn from this smoke event to prepare us for future summers when the smoke returns.
Prelude
For most of the summer of 2020, the Pacific Northwest enjoyed a mild wildfire season. The major impacts to air quality were a few fast-burning range fires near Yakima and Mattawa.
In the late August and early September, increasingly hot and dry conditions set the stage for what was to come. As Labor Day weekend arrived, so did the fires. The tiny town of Malden near Pullman was nearly destroyed by a fast-moving blaze, and a 1-year-old child died as his parents fled the Cold Springs Fire outside of Omak.
On Labor Day, Sept. 7, the typical
onshore flow of wind and weather systems moving in from the ocean shifted ashigh
pressure built up over the interior northwest and low pressure set up along the
coast. Since winds blow from high pressure toward low pressure areas,they
began to blow from the eastand strengthened
quickly.
In Washington, winds up to 50 miles per
hour pushed smoke from the fires to the eastacross
the mountains and into the cities of the Puget Sound region. Ash fell around
Seattle, and the air took on the smell of a campfire.
On Sept. 8, air quality declined to unhealthy levels in the Puget Sound region. South of Seattle, a brush fire leapt up in the Tacoma suburb of Bonney Lake, destroying two homes and forcing thousands of residents to evacuate.
The situation in Oregon was much more dire. Wildfires exploded in southern, central and northern Oregon, forced the evacuation of entire cities, ultimately burning up to the edges of the Portland suburbs as nearly a million acres of forest and hundreds of homes succumbed to the flames.
A “super massive” plume
Smoke from these fires settled off of the Oregon coast, where the cool waters finally calmed the winds. Over the week of Sept. 6, the smoke built up into a super-massive plume – a ghostly echo as large as the state that spawned it.
At the Washington Department of Ecology, smoke forecasters watched this plume build with unease. Off the coast, the choking cloud of smoke posed little danger to Washington communities, and lighter winds were forecast with the potential to blow the smoke north, skirting the Washington coast and heading into Canada.
If the typical onshore flow were to return, however, the smoke would circle around the Olympic Mountains and crash into Seattle, threatening more than 4 million people in the city’s metropolitan area.
On Thursday, Sept. 10, the hope that Washington would dodge the bullet faded. Winds shifted to southwest, pushing the smoke toward western Washington.
The heat from wildfires can drive smoke high into the atmosphere, where winds can pick that smoke up and drive it hundreds or thousands of miles. That wasn’t the case this time. Cooler temperatures the night of Sept. 10 allowed the smoke to mix down to ground level, and western Washington awoke on Friday, Sept. 11, to ashen skies.
The super massive plume continued to creep across Washington through the weekend, subjecting first central and then eastern Washington to the thick smoke. Had the smoke simply continued to blow eastward, however, it would have gradually cleared out and allowed air quality to recover.
That didn’t happen.
Forecasting smoke is not like conventional weather forecasting. Wildfires can grow suddenly, unleashing fresh torrents of smoke and ash. New fires can pop up, or firefighters can gain or lose ground on existing fires. Smoke rises and falls during the day, driven by wind and temperature changes.
Because of these complexities, the same sort of sophisticated computer model that confidently predicts rain a week ahead of time struggles to accurately forecast smoke more than a day or two out. Smoke forecasters use their personal expertise to try to out-guess the computer models, but they, too, are sometimes caught off guard as wind and weather combine to frustrate their expectations.
“What do you do when the atmosphere doesn’t deliver what you ordered?” asked Dr. Ranil Dhammapala, an atmospheric scientist and smoke forecaster with Ecology. “You try to diagnose the problem, take into consideration the lessons learned and issue an updated forecast.
“We look at multiple weather and smoke models, each with their own strengths and weaknesses,” Dhammapala said. “We also consider feedback from other forecasters, wildland fire managers and look at monitoring data continuously. Forecasts are constantly recalibrated as new information becomes available.”
The night of Sunday, Sept. 13, such a recalibration proved necessary. The wind working to clear the plume faltered. A new, weak front was forecast to continue the clear-out, but those winds instead sailed mostly overhead.
Why? With no wind and a thick blanket of smoke over the entire state, little sunlight reached the surface, meaning there was none of the usual daytime warming that produces evening breezes. Just as it does during wintertime temperature inversions, the smoke settled in the valleys and basins of Washington, forcing millions of residents to shelter inside.
A dark cloud
As that smoke settled, air quality grew worse and worse.
Between Saturday, Sept. 12 and Thursday, Sept. 17, every single air quality monitor in Washington state recorded levels of particulate pollution above the federal 24-hour standard.
Particulate pollution, especially the tiny particles known as PM2.5, pose a serious threat to human health. PM2.5 particles are 2.5 micrometers or smaller in size - so small that our bodies’ natural defenses don’t work against them. They lodge deep in our lungs and even get into our bloodstreams.
Short-term exposures to PM2.5 can irritate your eyes and throat, produce headaches, and leave you short of breath. For people who already suffer from a respiratory illness or heart disease, the effects are worse, and can be life-threatening.
“It’s very clear from research done here in Washington and in other places that more and more of the population suffers certain health problems when there’s a lot of wildfire smoke,” said Dr. Matt Kadlec, Ecology’s smoke toxicologist. “It’s common for people to have eye and respiratory tract irritation; stress; headaches; shortness of breath; and, among those who already have asthma, worsened symptoms. As smoke levels increase and last longer, respiratory and cardiovascular health risks increase, resulting in greater incidences of emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and even deaths.”
Washington is no stranger to wildfire smoke. The Carlton Complex Fire in 2014 burned more than a quarter-million acres and destroyed more than 350 homes in the Methow Valley. In 2017 and again in 2018, huge wildfires in British Columbia sent smoke southward, blanketing much of the state for weeks.
As bad as these smoke events were, they could not compare to September 2020.
Ecology scientist Dr. Beth Friedman looked at historical records going back to when the agency began tracking PM2.5 levels in the early 2000s. She found that more Washington cities were exposed to hazardous air quality – the highest category for air pollution – for longer than during any previous smoke event.
“This smoke event marks the most days statewide PM2.5 monitoring sites have recorded hazardous air quality going back to 2000, and the majority of the state experienced at least five consecutive days of very unhealthy or hazardous air quality,” Friedman said.
As the smoke lingered, hundreds of questions poured in to the Washington Smoke Information blog, where Dhammapala and fellow smoke forecaster Farren Herron-Thorpe tried to provide updated forecasts, explanations, and advice. More than 2.5 million people visited the smoke blog over the week, while another 2.6 million looked to Ecology’s air quality monitoring map for the latest conditions.
Light winds in the middle of the week momentarily cleared the smoke from a few spots on the coast, but then also brought a second wave of smoke from Oregon fires.
When would it end?
Hope on the horizon
After the dashed hope of relief on Sept. 13, commenters on the smoke blog and social media were skeptical of forecasts. To Dhammapala, Herron-Thorpe and other forecasters around the state, however, the signs for optimism were clear: Another weather system was due to arrive on the Washington coast Thursday, Sept. 17. The front would bring rain and gradually push the smoke northeast.
This time, the front arrived right on schedule. Air quality monitoring stations on the Washington coast showed good air quality by late morning Thursday. Further inland, though, air quality remained in the very unhealthy category in the Puget Sound region, and hazardous in most of Eastern Washington.
Slowly, slowly, that began to change. Friday afternoon saw heavier rains and scattered thundershowers. All over western Washington, people’s moods seemed to lighten as the smoke lifted, even though it hovered around the unhealthy range much of the day.
By Saturday, western Washington was clear – air quality monitors showed nearly all green on the map. Eastern Washington and Spokane had to wait another day for relief as the storm swept the smoke away.
And, on Sept. 21, it was all just a memory.
The new normal?
Are smoke events like this the “new normal”? Do we need to prepare for weeks stuck inside every summer from now on? Is there anything we can do to prevent that?
The Magic 8-ball tells us that the future is uncertain. Climate researchers predict that the number of acres burned each year in the west will continue to rise, as warmer winters eat away at mountain snowpack, and hotter summers dry foliage more quickly, setting the stage for wildfire.
Those long-term trends don’t tell us about any particular fire season, though – after major smoke events in 2017 and 2018, 2019 was a very mild year. And the wildfire season of 2020 was unexceptional for most of the summer. Until our luck ran out.
Even when fires race across the west, that doesn’t mean the more heavily populated regions will be hit by smoke. The sequence of events chronicled above shows that several factors have to come together in the right sequence for smoke events of this magnitude. In 2020, strong east winds allowed a super-massive plume of smoke to accumulate offshore, but had the wind shift been followed by stronger on-shore flows, that reservoir would have quickly drained.
Still, three of the past four years have seen days or weeks of unhealthy air in Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver. Clearly, everyone in Washington needs to be prepared to protect themselves and their families when smoke arrives.
N95 masks – the most effective portable protection against PM2.5 – were hard to come by in this pandemic year. The simple cloth masks most Washingtonians wear to reduce the spread of the coronavirus provide little protection against the tiny particles.
Staying inside with the doors and windows closed is the best advice to reduce smoke exposure, but that’s a tall order when hazardous air quality goes on day after day. Making sure your air conditioner – for those fortunate enough to have it – or furnace is set to recirculate helps to keep smoke outside. A clean filter with a MERV rating above 11 will capture some of the particles that do get in, and can significantly improve indoor air quality as the air recirculates.
Tens of thousands of people watched Ecology’s “how-to” video showing a simple trick to strap a furnace filter to a box fan, offering an inexpensive way to create a clean air shelter.
2020 was a record-setter. Whether it is a harbinger of the future or an exceptional event remains to be seen. What 2020 has taught us, though, should be a call to action for everyone in Washington to be prepared for smoky skies and toxic air.
No doubt everyone breathed easy yesterday when air quality in the whole state returned to Good. How long will it stay that way?
The map of monitors above shows Moderate or Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups air at several locations in Clark, Klickitat and southern Yakima counties. These are due to smoldering fires nearby. Even though fires are not puffing smoke like they were, low- buoyancy plumes are still draining some smoke into nearby cities.
These kind of relatively low grade and relatively localized impacts will continue on and off through late Tuesday. "Low grade" compared to last week, that is. A weak system tonight won't help a whole lot but a strong, wet front early Wednesday will show the smoke who's boss and knock back the fires. Impressive 24-hour total precipitation ending 5PM Wednesday, as per the average of all ensemble models at UW.
Two weaker storm systems are expected Thursday and Friday, bringing more good news to smoke- weary Washingtonians. However calmer, dryer conditions under high pressure are possible Sunday onward so lets not pop the champagne cork yet.
