Above: Blue Sky’s prediction for PM2.5 particulate matter for May 1, 2018.
Smoke from four large wildfires, agricultural burning, and prescribed fires are pumping a great deal of smoke and particulate matter into the atmosphere. These maps, created by the Forest Service’s Blue Sky program, show predictions for the amount of very small smoke particles, 2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller, which can only be seen with an electron microscope. Fine particles, known as PM 2.5, are produced from all types of combustion, including motor vehicles, power plants, residential wood burning, forest fires, agricultural burning, and some industrial processes.
The Tinder Fire has burned 11,420 acres in central Arizona and is being suppressed.
The OK Bar Fire in extreme southern New Mexico is 44,000 acres and is not being fully suppressed.
A Type 1 Incident Management Team has been ordered for the 2,000-acre McDannel Fire in west Texas 21 miles west of Ft. Davis.
The 5,800-acre North County Road 7 Fire is burning in northern Minnesota five miles south of the Canadian border 11 miles northwest of Greenbush. The fuels burning are mostly grass and swampland, said Christi Powers, an information officer for the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center in Grand Rapids, Minn.
Be careful how you interpret BlueSky modeling outputs. The lighter pink shades do not actually represent a “great deal of smoke”. Rather, if you look at the key, you’ll see that those indicate PM2.5 from modeled fires at less than 10 ug/m3.