Smoke from western fires will impact Utah air quality

SALT LAKE CITY — Temperatures are expected to cool down across the Wasatch Front this week. In exchange, meteorologists say that smoke from fires in northern California and Oregon will travel into our area.

“All that smoke is going to begin to drift east and into northern Utah air as early as this (Wednesday) afternoon and will remain in place throughout the remainder of the week,” said Mike Seaman with the National Weather Service.

The heat isn’t unexpected, after all, it’s summertime. However, the smoke in the air above Utah could create problems, especially for sensitive groups who struggle with respiratory issues.  

“With the smoke coming in, that’s going to add some additional particulate to the air,” Seaman said. “We’re likely going to see an additional decrease in air quality. The Division of Air Quality [has an] orange forecast out for this increase in smoke as well as the ozone.”

The worst time to be outdoors when the weather is like this, said Seaman, is during the afternoon hours when the sun is at its highest angle.

Northern Utahns will know that the smoke has arrived when conditions get hazy. And that’s when it’s even more dangerous for people sensitive to changes in air quality.

“As that smoke thickens a little bit, we’ll probably see a couple of these thicker surges of smoke that’ll increase concentrations at lower elevations, down toward the valley. That’ll bring an increase in the PM, 2.5 particulate,” Seaman said.

Unlike the winter inversion that commonly settles in the Utah air, there’ll be no escaping this summertime bad air by heading to the mountains. 

And for that you can blame the smoke.

Related: Coping with poor air quality

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