Boise Air Quality / Fires (smog, activities, health)
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Boise typically has issues with air quality (see the state EPA and DEQ websites for historical data); mostly due to inversion layers in the winter, and occasional summer smog. Mostly it's pretty fleeting, except when we have inversion heavy winters (every 4 years or so) or lingering summer haze (a few weeks each year).
Another significant factor to poor air quality is the fire season. For the past 4 years or so we've had a pretty mild, tame fire season here in Idaho. This year has been as bad as I can remember in the past 10 years, as Boise has been virtually surrounded by large forest fires for the past 3 weeks. The air quality here has been so bad we've been on constant yellow and occasional orange levels (you can look up what each means). It's so bad most days I can't see the foothills from downtown.
Luckily the Springs fire has been contained; not so much for the Halsted or Trinity fires. They are expected to go until snowfall. Which means our air quality here will pretty much stink until then, especially when the inversion patterns trap in the smoke.
Typically we have our share of grass fires which burn throughout Southern Idaho, but they generally are contained within a day or two. That is usual for the area. Forest fires happen every year but serious ones usually only happen every 5-7 years.
Combined with the unusually hot summer (seems like it's been 90+ since late June, and we've had over 15 100+ days this year already) and the extremely bad fire season, this has not been a pleasant summer here in Boise. Luckily we've had good winter precipitation so that we're not also suffering from a drought.
I'm not being a negative nancy with this post, but rather posting some information about Boise/Idaho that often goes undiscussed.
All this smoke in Boise is getting real bad, and now health officials are warning Idahoans to reduce or postpone their outdoors activities this weekend due to all the smoke in the air. Can't wait for clean wind or rain.
Boise typically has issues with air quality (see the state EPA and DEQ websites for historical data); mostly due to inversion layers in the winter, and occasional summer smog. Mostly it's pretty fleeting, except when we have inversion heavy winters (every 4 years or so) or lingering summer haze (a few weeks each year).
Another significant factor to poor air quality is the fire season. For the past 4 years or so we've had a pretty mild, tame fire season here in Idaho. This year has been as bad as I can remember in the past 10 years, as Boise has been virtually surrounded by large forest fires for the past 3 weeks. The air quality here has been so bad we've been on constant yellow and occasional orange levels (you can look up what each means). It's so bad most days I can't see the foothills from downtown.
Luckily the Springs fire has been contained; not so much for the Halsted or Trinity fires. They are expected to go until snowfall. Which means our air quality here will pretty much stink until then, especially when the inversion patterns trap in the smoke.
Typically we have our share of grass fires which burn throughout Southern Idaho, but they generally are contained within a day or two. That is usual for the area. Forest fires happen every year but serious ones usually only happen every 5-7 years.
Combined with the unusually hot summer (seems like it's been 90+ since late June, and we've had over 15 100+ days this year already) and the extremely bad fire season, this has not been a pleasant summer here in Boise. Luckily we've had good winter precipitation so that we're not also suffering from a drought.
I'm not being a negative nancy with this post, but rather posting some information about Boise/Idaho that often goes undiscussed.
Well said, HP. The facts are the facts. However I believe the rest of the story is that we also get smoke from Northern California and Northern Nevada. I understand that much of the smoke we have in the valley now is from the Eastern Washington - Yakima/Walla Walla area.
Is it still bad air now from fires/smoke? I posted a thread in the MT forum, asking re: air quality/pollution in N. MT & N. ID. I was wondering if anyone here knew anything of that N. area? Thx.
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