Friday, September 12th Smoke Impact Summary for the Klamath Wildfires

The Full Smoke Impact Summary is available here

Friday, September 12, 2014 - Meadow Fire Projections & Overnight Growth

Fire Behavior Specialists on the Meadow Fire complete a number of projections every day to assist decision makers.  The Fire Behavior Analyst (FBAN) focuses on day-to-day projections and firefighter safety, alerting them to impending dangers like the erratic and unpredictable fire behavior arising from a thunderstorm downdraft.  The Long Term Analyst (LTAN) works more in the three- to fourteen-day time frame.  He or she uses actual weather forecasts for the first three days, usually generated by a National Weather Service meteorologist assigned to the incident.  Fire behavior projections beyond that rely on historic meteorological records for the same time period, pulled from nearby remote automated weather stations (RAWS).

Shown below is a three-day Near-Term Fire Behavior projection based on the 9/10 IR perimeter of the Meadow Fire:

This projection does not take into account any suppression actions. With twelve 20-person crews spiked out in Yosemite's backcountry, they are now making significant gains in containment goals, so a projection of this type will tend to overstate fire growth. While this projection calls for several hundred acres of growth daily, Actual fire growth yesterday was 69 acres, and last night's IR map is shown below:

And here is the summary of air quality data from nearby monitoring stations from this morning:

For the full data set from this morning go to this link.

Friday, September 12, 2014 Wildfire Air Quality Summary fro the Klamath Region

Air Quality Summary                                                                 

Friday, September 12, 2014

Prepared by: Ryan Bauer (USDA-FS) and Dan Chan (GA-GFC)

Yesterday Smoke that pooled in valleys and drainages in the morning was eventually cleaned out by southerly winds that developed in the afternoon. Smoke was pushed north of the fires most of the day. By evening some of the smoke had begun settling into Scott Valley and the Scott and Klamath River drainages. Today Southerly winds will continue over the region today. Smoke that pooled overnight in the valleys and drainages will begin to clear by late morning as southwesterly winds increase. Ft. Jones, Yreka, and Klamath River communities upstream of Happy Camp will have the highest impacts today. Ashland, OR is likely to experience smoke impacts through the afternoon but should begin clearing in the evening. Communities in the lower Klamath River, Trinity, and Salmon drainage should start to see an improvement in air quality. Tomorrow Conditions are forecast to be similar to today as smoke will be pushed north again. Communities southwest of the fires should see more improvement.  Smoke concentrations are likely to remain high in the upper Klamath River drainage north of the fires and in Yreka and Ft. Jones.
Site	September 11 Yesterday’s AQI	September 12 Today’s AQI	September 13 Predicted AQI	Likely Time of Highest Impacts Today
Yreka	Moderate	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Afternoon/Early Evening
Ft. Jones	Moderate	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Afternoon/Early Evening
Etna	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Evening
Macdoel	Good	Moderate	Moderate	Late Afternoon/ Evening
Seiad Valley	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Unhealthy	Very Unhealthy	Early Afternoon
Happy Camp	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Unhealthy	Unhealthy	Mid-day
Somes Bar	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Moderate	Moderate	Morning
Orleans	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Moderate	Moderate	Late Morning/Early Afternoon
Weitchpec	Moderate	Moderate	Good	Afternoon
Hoopa	Moderate	Moderate	Good	Morning/Early Afternoon
Willow Creek	Moderate	Good	Good	Mid-day
Mt. Shasta	Good	Good	Good	Afternoon
Weed	Good	Moderate	Moderate	Evening
Sawyers Bar	Unhealthy	Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups	Moderate	Late Morning
PLEASE NOTE: The air quality outlook is based on data from automated instruments that have not been subjected to a quality assurance review. AQI’s estimated for sites with air monitors.