The air in Park City and surrounding areas has been noticeably hazy all week long. The culprit is smoke from wildfires, but not any wildfires nearby. Rather, the smoke is from dozens of out-of-state wildfires that continues to blow our way.
“It’s coming from all different directions. It’s coming from Washington and Oregon and also from California,” said Donna Spangler, communications director at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
Eric Shoening, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office, agreed.
“It’s kind of a combination of several fires, most of them probably up in the Pacific Northwest. We’ve had this kind of persistent northwest wind for a couple of days now and that just keeps pushing more and more smoke from that area into much of the rest of the West,” he said.
Until the wind patterns change, Shoening doesn’t expect the current conditions to change.
“As long as we stay in this northwest flow, we’re just going to keep getting more and more smoke because those fires are still pretty active. They keep pumping out smoke and it just keeps blowing over towards us,” he said.
“There’s a chance that starting the beginning of next week, Monday, Tuesday, that area, winds will switch to the southwest and we’ll also get some additional moisture come in from the south, so that could increase showers across the area. So that’s kind of when we’re expecting the possibility that we can sweep some of this smoke out of the area,” he added.
The only thing people can do in the meantime is to drive less.
“It’s particulate pollution. You still have the same health impacts that you would in the wintertime, so if you drive more, you’re just putting more particulate pollution in the air and it’s just going to become worse,” said Spangler. “So let’s try and drive less if we can, make fewer trips or consolidate them, again because driving does make things worse and adds to the pollution.”
Parkites join the fight
Park City Fire Department Captain David Marsella is currently in Northern California with a PCFD engine and two other PCFD firefighters. The team is on a two-week assignment where it is working with four other engines to form a single “strike team.”
The wildfire Marsella is fighting is called the River Complex, in National Forests east of Eureka. He spoke with The Park Record Friday morning, after finishing a 16-hour night shift.
“It was originally 18 small fires, which eventually grew into three large fires, which eventually grew into one really large fire,” he said. “So when they get this big they call them complexes. And so what’s happening in Northern California right now is there are five separate complexes and the River one is just one of five.
“The biggest real issue is there’s just not enough firefighters to go around right now.”
“Most of it is fairly rural,” he said. “We’ve got one little community we’ve been protecting at night which consists of about seven homes.”
Three firefighters were killed in Washington Wednesday afternoon and the news made its way to Marsella’s team in California.
“You kind of reflect on what you do and family and stuff like that,” he said. “And then you really do your best just to try and figure out what went wrong with them and learn from their mistakes — if they made a mistake.”
Marsella said his team will be working at the River Complex until next Wednesday, although that end-date could get pushed back a week.
Weekend forecast
The Summit County Health Department issued an advisory on Friday that will be in effect throughout the weekend. The department “is advising the following residents of the Snyderville Basin and Park City areas to reduce prolonged or heavy outdoor exertion: People with lung disease, such as asthma; Children and older adults; People who are active outdoors.
Residents of other Summit County areas with asthma or heart and lung conditions are advised to limit outdoor activity.”
As of Friday, the DEQ reported “moderate” particulate matter (“a complex mixture of extremely small dust and soot particles”) pollution in Salt Lake County. It forecasted worse conditions over the weekend, when the air quality is expected to go from “moderate” to “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”
The DEQ warns that “[i]f smoke becomes thick, persons with existing heart or respiratory ailments should reduce physical exertion and outdoor activity. Individuals are asked to TravelWise by consolidating trips and choose cleaner transportation options.”