Major wildfires burning across California are spreading hazardous levels of smoke across the West, turning skies across the Bay Area into what’s becoming the Summer of 2018’s familiar hue: sun-streaked gray. On Tuesday, the National Weather Service office in Boise, Idaho, released a map showing how the smoke is expected to spread through Wednesday, well into Canada and deep into Colorado. Smoke across California led to air quality advisories in the Sierra and Central Valley. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District extended an air quality advisory through Thursday, urging people who smell smoke to stay inside with windows and doors closed and set air conditioning systems in their homes and cars to re-circulate to prevent outside air from moving inside. The thick gray obscured foothills throughout the Bay Area and raised the gloomy prospect of smoke fouling major music festivals this weekend with Outside Lands set for San Francisco and the Jazz Summer Fest in downtown San Jose. “We’re hoping the air quality doesn’t affect people’s desire to go outside,” said Vanessa Burchell, an employee at The Glasshouse, an event venue for San Jose’s jazz festival, which starts Friday. As of mid-day Tuesday, at least 16 major fires were burning across the state, with the largest being the Mendocino Complex Fire in Lake County, the Carr Fire near Redding and the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite. By Tuesday morning, the Mendocino Complex Fire, burning mostly in grasslands around Clear Lake, had charred 290,692 acres — an area larger than the cities of San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento combined — making it the largest wildfire in recorded California history. Plumes of billowing smoke from the #CaliforniaWildfires stretch eastwards toward to the Rocky Mountains. pic.twitter.com/hGNO9XQbjB — Ricky Arnold (@astro_ricky) August 6, 2018 Hazardous levels of soot in the air are a large part of the reason that national parks officials announced Sunday that Yosemite National Park would remain closed indefinitely while fire crews continue to battle the Ferguson Fire. GOES-East 🛰️ Geo-Color snapshot at 7:47 am PDT reveals #smoke blanketing the vast majority of central and northern California this morning. Additionally, low clouds are covering the coast and Salinas Valley. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/jLNBpMu9sM — NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) August 7, 2018 The Bay Area Air District first called a “Spare the Air” alert on Monday, urging people to drive less, ride public transportation, refrain from outdoor barbecues and take other measures to limit air pollution. Ton Flannigan, a spokesperson for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said that temperatures pushing 90 degrees Wednesday and winds out of the north will switch the region’s air quality to unhealthy. Inland areas such as Livermore, the Santa Clara Valley and parts of the East Bay like Walnut Creek will be the most adversely affected by the Mendocino Complex Fire smoke. Start your day with the news you need from the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our Morning Report weekday newsletter. High levels of soot in the air, called particulate pollution, can exacerbate breathing difficulties for people with asthma and other respiratory problems. It can also increase the risk of heart attacks and other ailments. “I can already tell the difference,” said Paul Parson, a Doordash delivery man who said the smoke combined with his asthma have made it particularly hard to jog outdoors. “The air is much thicker, it’s harder to breathe.” This isn't stratus this morning looking west from the @LickObservatory, it's smoke. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/dcAMDwShCG — NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) August 7, 2018 Here was the same view on Sunday morning. pic.twitter.com/5menkmN88S — NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) August 7, 2018<doc-sep>This story originally appeared on High Country News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. At the end of July, Twitter user Alicia Santana posted a photo of a man sitting in a plastic folding chair in his yard. He’s looking away from the camera, towards a monstrous, orange cloud of smoke filling the sky beyond a wire fence. “My dad not wanting to leave his home,” Santana wrote, ending it with #MendocinoComplexFire. As wildfires spark, parts of the internet glow with them. The #CarrFire, #FergusonFire, #RanchFire and other hashtags spread quickly this summer on Twitter. If past seasons are any indication, there will be thousands more tweets like this, and they will continue as smoke—the insidious second wave of wildfires—spreads across the West. They can also be used for data. In a recently published study, US Forest Service researchers Sonya Sachdeva and Sarah McCaffrey found that, when analyzed in large numbers, tweets about wildfires can accurately model the way smoke moves. In their study, published by the International Conference on Social Media & Society, Sachdeva and McCaffrey analyzed close to 39,000 tweets posted between May and September 2015 in California. They stripped the tweets to reveal their core subjects: smoke in the air, fallen ash, haziness, smell. By tagging the tweets with the location in which they were posted, the researchers created a verbatim map: a landscape of fire based on the people who experienced it. Their modeling proved accurate when compared to figures from air quality monitors. Their results show that what we write online could fill the gaps that traditional data collection leave behind. While still nascent, using social media to study environmental events is a growing field. Images from Flickr can help researchers understand tourism rates in natural areas, and social media often acts as a crucial tool in disaster relief. “Social media is everywhere people are,” Sachdeva said. “Physical monitors of any kind, by virtue of them being physical, can’t do that.” The 2015 wildfire season, including the Rough and Butte fires, burned nearly 900,000 acres in California alone. The smoke-related tweets Sachdeva and McCaffrey used reflect the air pollution’s wide impact. “Abandoned my 2015 #johnmuirtrail attempt… due to Rough Fire smoke. Poor visibility and headache the culprit,” one Twitter user wrote. Another simply read: “#airquality #cantbreathe #roughfire #California.”<doc-sep>Anthony Wexler, the director of the Air Quality Research Center at the University of California, Davis, packed his bags and drove his family out to the coast. They're escaping the smoke. Davis, California, sits amid a layer of wildfire smoke in Northern California. To the northwest, the largest fire in state history, the Mendocino Complex Fire, continues to burn. To the southeast, the Ferguson Fire has closed down smoke-choked Yosemite National Park indefinitely. And to the North, the Carr Fire, infamous for its towering fire tornado, still burns. The air quality in the region around the fires — whose spread has been enhanced by extreme heat parching the land — is some of the worst in the world. "I decided to go out to the coast for a couple days because it was so ridiculous," Wexler said. On Wednesday, the National Weather Service illustrated how winds have lifted bounties of smoke across the entire U.S., bringing pollution even beyond the East Coast. Smoke from the western fires is making it all the way to the East Coast and beyond (at least aloft—mostly above a mile above the surface). Here's the vertically integrated smoke (HRRR model from last night). Another map showed some smoke near the surface even in New England. pic.twitter.com/0Jl6WDAFjg — NWS San Diego (@NWSSanDiego) August 8, 2018 That said, it's not as if these smoke particles are harmful to those on the East Coast. By the time that smoke arrives in Boston and New York, the particles have been diluted with fresh air, and certainly can't be seen, nor are concentrations unhealthy. It's normal for pollution to waft from west to east across the country, just like pollution from China is regularly transported over the Pacific Ocean into the U.S. That's how air generally moves over the Northern Hemisphere, said Wexler. But it's much rarer for even low concentrations of smoke to find their way across the nation. "It doesn’t happen every day," Gabriele Pfister, deputy director of the National Center of Atmospheric Research’s atmospheric chemistry lab, said in an interview. "But, it can happen." "Normally, the pollution isn’t so great that it’s noticeable when it gets east," added Wexler. This isn't stratus this morning looking west from the @LickObservatory, it's smoke. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/dcAMDwShCG — NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) August 7, 2018 But just how bad is the air pollution in large regions of the West? "It's been like a reasonably decent day in Beijing," said Wexler. "That's really telling. It’s really awful there." "It’s unbelievable," said Pfister. She noted that planes flying over the area, as part of a National Science Foundation-funded wildfire study, have picked up some alarming pollution numbers. It's expected that particulate matter — tiny fragments of pollution 30 times thinner than a human hair — would be bad. But the flights even picked up abnormally high concentrations of carbon monoxide, an odorless gas that can be dangerous to human health in enclosed spaces, and at worse, lethal. However, some of the measured values around the fires are about 5 parts per million, or ppm, which are not considered nearly dangerous — but it's still telling. The amount of smoke over the West tonight is nothing short of astounding. pic.twitter.com/Mya0rZauMl — Dan Satterfield (@wildweatherdan) August 8, 2018 "These are values you don’t typically find near the surface in the U.S.," said Pfister. "Maybe you’ll find that if you stick your head into the exhaust of a car." It's not carbon monoxide, however, that people in burning regions need to be concerned about. One of the main factors that's figured into air quality ratings is particulate matter. Both U.S. government and university researchers have repeatedly shown that breathing this stuff is bad for your heart, as it accelerates plaque build-up in blood vessels. In some areas of Oregon, the Air Quality Index currently registers as "Hazardous." In Redding, California, where a fire tornado spun for 80 minutes last week, the air quality is rated as "Unhealthy." But out near the windswept coast, like in San Francisco, the air quality is "Good." Here is what the #smoke looked like over the Central Valley and affecting #AirQuality today. Deep smoke up to 10,000 feet AGL with multiple layers of smoke caused by transport of different #wildfire plumes. Thanks to @MBrewerWX @weather_jack #MendocinoComplexFire #CarrFire pic.twitter.com/aOlNqLLJNV — SJSU FireWeatherLab (@FireWeatherLab) August 9, 2018 It's likely that the West will be intermittently blanketed in unhealthy to hazardous air for months ahead, as the fire season is not nearly over. Rains aren't expected for months, and more temperature and fire records might be broken. Many Westerners aren't near the fires themselves. But it's harder to outrun the smoke. "In my experience, it's never been this bad," said Wexler.<doc-sep>Smoke from California's many wildfires spreads as far east as Salt Lake City in this image, which was captured by NASA's Aqua satellite on July 29, 2018. A dramatic new satellite photo shows the destructive reach of the wildfires raging across California. The image, which was captured Sunday (July 29) by NASA's Earth-observing Aqua satellite, depicts smoke blanketing much of the Golden State and spreading as far east as Salt Lake City. Much of that smoke is coming from the Carr Fire, a dangerous and fast-moving blaze centered near the Northern California city of Redding. As of Monday morning (July 30), the Carr Fire had scorched nearly 100,000 acres (40,500 hectares) and was just 20 percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). The Carr Fire has killed six people to date. To the southwest of the Carr conflagration are the River and Ranch fires, which together form the "Mendocino Complex." These two blazes have consumed a combined 56,000 acres (22,700 hectares) to date, and each one is just 5 percent contained, according to Cal Fire. Then there's the Ferguson Fire, which has been burning near Yosemite National Park since July 13. Ferguson has blackened nearly 56,700 acres and is 30 percent contained, Cal Fire reports. Two firefighters have been killed battling the blaze to date. And those are just the biggest, most prominent blazes; numerous other fires have broken out around California, and throughout other Western states. To get the latest updates, go to Cal Fire's "Incidents" page. The Aqua satellite launched in May 2002, tasked primarily with studying Earth's water cycle. But the spacecraft can make a variety of other observations as well — helping researchers and first responders keep tabs on wildfires, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters, for example. Aqua's sibling satellite, Terra, has also been monitoring the California wildfires lately. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.<doc-sep>
Smoke billowing from the destructive fires burning through California this summer has spread far beyond the Golden State — reaching the East Coast. The National Weather Service says smoke from the raging fires out West has impacted cities thousands of miles away — and the atmosphere above them. Residents in states like Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, Virginia and even New York and Massachusetts can see the smoke manifest itself through grey skies and vibrant sunsets, the National Weather Service says. And those in fewer states throughout the Midwest, South and East Coast are breathing in air that has been impacted by the smoke as well. But how exactly does smoke travel this far? Andy Edman, chief of the science technology infusion division at the National Weather Service, says small particles of smoke that come from the fires can stay in the air and move through the Earth’s atmosphere — all the way to the East Coast. The smoke sits more than a mile above the Earth’s surface, but can move down through strong winds called jet streams and have an impact on air quality. “Where the smoke is in the atmosphere will make a difference on the impact a human being will receive,” Edman says. For example, with the smoke far from the Earth’s surface, Edman says, “if you’re in D.C. or New York, if you walk outside, it will all seem sunny but if you look up at the sky, it will be grey.” The National Weather Service has two relevant maps that explores the issue. One shows the path of “vertically integrated smoke” — that is, the smoke that sits far above Earth’s surface in the atmosphere and impacts the sky you see above you. Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The other map shows the movement of “near-surface smoke,” which, as its name suggests, shows the levels of smoke near the Earth’s surface that have an impact on air quality. Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Particles from smoke near the Earth’s surface can cause a range of health issues, including respiratory problems, and aggravate lung and heart issues. Officials advise people living in areas impacted by the smoke to take safety measures by staying in doors and running air conditioning units. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured images of smoke from these fires from space earlier this week, showing the smoke’s eastward shift and massive reach. Edman, of the National Weather Service, says not all fires can create this long-ranging stream of smoke, but the cumulation of fire after fire after fire in the state has made it possible this time around. “When you have that many fires, it’s not uncommon for that smoke to go fairly long ways downstream,” Edman says. Smoke particles from fires in California traveled far last year, too, when satellite images from NASA showed the smoke traveling over to the East Coast. Thanks to new technology, Edman says, the National Weather Service has been better able to track the movement of smoke across the U.S. from fires based in California, capturing it in visualizations and maps for just a few years now. Meanwhile, in California, 15 active wildfires are burning throughout the state as a destructive and record-breaking fire season rages on. The Mendocino Complex fire just north of San Francisco became the largest fire in state history earlier this week, scorching through 307,447 acres and destroying 119 homes as of Friday morning. Other fires have blazed through tens of thousands of acres across the state. That includes the 181,000-acre Carr fire, which has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Redding, Calif., and taken at least eight lives. The Ferguson fire blazing near Yosemite National Park prompted park officials to close popular sections of it for the first time in 20 years (and during peak season), and the Holy fire down in Orange County forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate their homes. Fueled by extremely dry vegetation, record-setting temperatures and the aftermath of a years-long drought, fire seasons in California have grown more intense in recent years and death and destruction has become the norm. Contact us at letters@time.com.