Missoula Air Quality Down to “Poor” From Fires

By Courtney Lowery, 8-23-06

It's awfully smoky out there today. So smoky in fact that our air quality has been downgraded from marginal (where it's been for the last few days) to "poor." The "poor" designation means visibility is reduced to 6-7 miles.

But we can't just blame our fires. Some of the gray is coming from the fires around Missoula but some might also be coming from neighboring blazes in Idaho. "It's totally a mix," says Ben Schmidt, an air quality specialist for the Misosula County Department of Environmental Health. The smoke might clear in the afternoon if predicted westerly winds pick up, but then, we'll start getting more smoke from Idaho fires. Then again, we also have fires to the east of us, so "we're just going to have smoke," Schmidt said.

In southwest Montana central Idaho fires are pouring a good blanket of smoke into the Dillon and Ennis areas, says Jack De Golia, a spokesman for the Dillion Interagency Dispatch Center. "The source of the smoke is fires upwind of us, in south central Idaho, particularly between Stanley and Lowman,” De Golia said in a release today.

There are several large fires and at least 15 smaller wilderness fires burning around Missoula this week. For a good roundup, click here for our New West report, or click here for the list of Montana fires and here for the list of Idaho fires on www.inciweb.org. And, click here for more information on wildfire smoke. [End of article]