This is the first time in my memory smoke has covered the entire western two-thirds of the United States.
Smoke map, July 3, 2013
3 thoughts on “Smoke map, July 3, 2013”
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News and opinion about wildland fire
This is the first time in my memory smoke has covered the entire western two-thirds of the United States.
Comments are closed.
Most of those detections are in the Mississippi Delta. This area is mostly agricultural production. What you see there now is most likely planned ignitions for agricultural purposes (crop residue management, burning brush piles, land clearing and grass seed production). There will also be some prescribed fire in wildlands for habitat mgt, and forestry mgt purposes. And most likely a few wildfires and maybe even a structure fire or two. Since this area is 99% private you won’t see much of this activity showing up in National Situation Report. As you go east and west from the Delta (Mississippi River) you move into areas with forest cover where fire is a key tool for forest and habitat management.
This same map the first week in April would show a swath of fires running north and south through the Flint Hills of Kansas and Oklahoma. The Flint Hills will see 1 to 3 million acres of RX burning every spring.
http://www.epa.gov/region07/priorities/agriculture/flint_hills_burning_q-a.htm
makes sense, thanks
Amazing. All those fires in arkansas, louisiana & mississippi!