{"id":21299,"date":"2024-08-07T01:47:46","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T07:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=21299"},"modified":"2024-10-30T15:36:09","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T21:36:09","slug":"blaine-county-air-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/07\/blaine-county-air-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"Blaine County Air Quality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take a Deep Breath<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL<\/em><\/p>\n

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Air Quality Index (AQI). Image credit: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u2019re in the dog days of summer and wow are they intense. At this elevation it can feel as though you\u2019re pressed right up against the sun. With extreme summers come wildfires and while we all know of the Bench Lake Fire at Redfish, as of this writing there are 14 large fires scattered across Idaho blazing into a veritable \u2018Great Wall\u2019 stretching from the Idaho\/Oregon border, west, nearly to the sea. These, the usual summer heat and pollution, all add up to make big changes to the quality of air.<\/p>\n

Wildland Fires<\/strong><\/p>\n

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AirNow forecast for Hailey. Image credit: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A wildland fire is one that \u201coccurs in an area where there is little to no human activity or development.\u201d That would be your forests, grasslands, shrublands, and wetlands. You can visualize these wildland fires at https:\/\/idsmoke.blogspot.com\/ and see many more, currently, in surrounding Montana and Washington. Although the direction of atmospheric wind currents and streams play a role in the changing potency of pollutants, wildland fires can amass to degrade the quality of air we all breathe. The metric to gauge this is known as the Air Quality Index (AQI).
\nHealthy adults shouldn\u2019t have much to worry about, but those who are pregnant, have small children, those with asthma, lung or heart disease can be impacted by the pollutants from a collection of wildland fires. To help better prepare for these incidents, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Forest Service have created the AirNow Fire and Smoke Map at https:\/\/fire.airnow.gov\/ showing you precise conditions where the air may be healthy, harmful or somewhere in between.<\/p>\n

Fiery Science<\/strong>
\nEvery May, the EPA hosts an Air Quality Awareness Week and this year\u2019s theme was \u201cKnowing Your Air.\u201d The Centers for Disease Control, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. National Park Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and U.S. Forest Service, along with tribal, local and state governments, pooled resources to educate the public about air quality.
\nThe Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program (IWFAQR) was formed and at https:\/\/outlooks.airfire.org\/outlook you can find, updated in near real time, Smoke Outlooks, which are collections of where smoke from fires could become a health issue. At https:\/\/www.airnow.gov\/aqi\/ you will find resources and a heatmap with the \u201cAQI Basics for Ozone and Particle Pollution.\u201d The AQI is color coded into six zones starting at green with an AQI of 0-50m, which poses no risk, and progressing to maroon with an AQI of 300+, which becomes a health warning for absolutely everyone. But what exactly is being measured?
\n\u201cThe EPA establishes an AQI for five major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act. Each of these pollutants has a national air quality standard set by the EPA to protect public health: ground-level ozone, particle pollution (also known as particulate matter, including PM2.5 and PM10), carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide\u201d (https:\/\/www.airnow.gov\/aqi\/aqi-basics\/).
\nYou can think of the AQI as an easily read metric for how you\u2019ll be impacted in the zone you\u2019re looking for. They use temporary monitors and nearly 15,000 low-cost sensors to measure fine-particle pollution, which is the most deleterious pollutant in smoke. These sensors are placed near smoke plumes to provide near real-time updates on the AQI.<\/p>\n

Minding The Children<\/strong>
\nFine-particle pollution can be in the air whether you see it or not. Children often find it challenging to understand things they can\u2019t immediately see. To address this, AirNow has created a children\u2019s book called \u201cWhy Is Coco Red?\u201d (https:\/\/www.airnow.gov\/education\/why-is-coco-red\/) that aims to explain, visually, how these fire-based pollutants can cause lung issues during times of poor AQI.
\nRunny nose, burning eyes and symptoms of bronchitis can be an early warning and for the asthmatic, the symptoms include heavy coughing and painful breathing. There are steps you can take to protect yourself in all zones but the most common sense is to leave the zone if it\u2019s at AQI 101 or beyond. Most Idahoans, knowing the dangers of fire season and increased traffic pollution from population growth, have air filters in home and modern smoke detectors typically offer carbon dioxide and monoxide sensors. There are a whole range of new air-quality sensors worth searching for at your nearest hardware store or online mercantile.<\/p>\n

Passion for the Great Outdoors<\/strong>
\nWe all love to get out during the summer but along with sunscreen, shades and water, it\u2019s a good idea to check the air quality in your neighborhood or near your next daycation, especially if you have loved ones in tow with sensitive lungs.
\nAccording to Amy Dillon, public information officer for the South Central Public Health District, \u201cThe AQI in Ketchum, which is the closest monitoring station, is at 61, and that\u2019s a good thing. Currently, the region is at the \u2018Moderate\u2019 level, in the yellow. This is an improvement compared to the last two to three weeks, where the AQI index ranged between \u2018Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups\u2019 and \u2018Unhealthy\u2019 in South Central Idaho.
\n\u201cAnything at 101 AQI and above is unhealthy, especially to sensitive groups. These groups can include people with lung diseases, such as asthma, people with heart disease or diabetes, children and teens, those who are pregnant, older adults, and people who are active outdoors.
\n\u201cTo stay safe when air quality is unhealthy, people should limit the time they spend outdoors, reduce the intensity of any outdoor activity when they are outdoors, take more breaks, and keep any rescue inhalers close by, where applicable. People are encouraged to spend time indoors in filtered-air environments, and to replace any air filters as needed.
\n\u201cTo sensitive groups, it\u2019s recommended to make outdoor activities shorter and less intense. It can be OK to be active outdoors, but take more breaks. Watch for symptoms such as coughing or shortness of breath.
\n\u201cPeople with asthma: Follow your asthma action plan and keep quick relief medicine handy.
\n\u201cPeople with heart disease: Symptoms such as palpitations, shortness of breath, chest pain, or unusual fatigue may indicate a serious problem. If you have any of these, you definitely want to contact your healthcare provider.
\n\u201cAnd, of course, stay updated on air-quality reports from the smoke maps.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s An App For That<\/strong>
\nTo make things even easier, you can download their mobile app at https:\/\/www.airnow.gov\/airnow-mobile-app\/. This app offers a smart routine check before traveling during this most heat-beleaguered season.<\/p>\n

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Take a Deep Breath BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL We\u2019re in the dog days of summer and wow are they intense. At this elevation it can feel as though you\u2019re pressed right up against the sun. With extreme summers come wildfires and while we all know of the Bench Lake Fire at Redfish, as of this writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,5,1268,79,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-emergency-services","8":"category-environment-2","9":"category-fire","10":"category-health-news","11":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21304,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21299\/revisions\/21304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}