Smoke from the massive wildfires in Northern California is now reaching the Bay Area, prompting an alert from public officials on Saturday morning, Aug. 15.
San Mateo County sent an alert at about 9:15 a.m. advising residents that smoke from the fires was coming through the county and was in Pacifica. No fires are in the county, the message noted.
By 10:15 a.m. a haze was blanketing the Bay Area including parts of Santa Clara County. It is currently obscuring views of the Santa Cruz Mountains and mountains east across San Francisco Bay. Visibility was about five miles.
The smoke is coming from a series of fires in Lake County and other fire complexes west and south of Redding. Updated smoke maps can be found here.
Palo Alto police said that no health advisories have been issued as a result of the drift smoke.
Ryan Walbrun, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said that while the Rocky and Jerusalem fires in Lake County were still creating smoke, the majority of the smoke drifting into the Bay Area today is from wildfire activity in Trinity County, near the Oregon border.
That smoke was carried down through the Sacramento Valley by a north wind, according to Walbrun. With no storm on the immediate horizon, the smoke will likely linger in the Bay Area until carried out to sea by offshore breezes.
“I wouldn’t really expect any improvement tomorrow with the fires and the wind pattern,” Walbrun said. “Hopefully if we get a little west wind by Monday afternoon that will start to filter things out.”
A Spare the Air Alert has been issued for Sunday due to concerns about smog, but a representative for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District said the wildfires were not a factor in that decision.
Quite noticeable, but puzzling, in Downtown North; thanks for clearing up the mystery.
Is the smoke dangerous to people who are outdoors this weekend? Especially thinking about kids and seniors.
@resident:
It depends. Some people are more sensitive to airborne particulate matter than others.
The best advice is to limit strenuous activities outdoors, especially if you are known to have respiratory problems when these sort of instances occur. After all, this is not the first time we have had drift smoke from wildfires.
Use your best judgment, the authorities don’t always have an answer that suits everyone’s needs.
The Spare the Air folks are forecasting high pollution today and dangerous levels tomorrow for the Santa Clara Valley: http://www.sparetheair.org/stay-informed/todays-air-quality/five-day-forecast
Can’t they make the smoke avoid Palo Alto? We have so many major problems these days ( airplane noise, train noise, ambulance noise, too much traffic, busses in downtown north neighborhoods, a dangerous and tacky downtown, members of PAF on the CAC committee, no mom and pop stores etc), that I am not sure people will be able to handle another major blow. Is the city council doing something about this????
@Agenda:
You forgot teen suicide, high rents, construction noise, and the lack of homey family-style restaurants.
But good on you! You skewered basically 85% of PA Online commenters! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!
And worst of all, we have Agenda.
Thank you for the update – so sad though
All I care about right now is the fact that since early this morning, my son and I have been wheezing in spite of inhalers and air conditioning!
Weekends are never a good time to get sick.
it’s hard to know what to say/write, so difficult. This is a bad situation for us but for others it is much worse. Sometimes it is hard to remember that.
Very hazy in Santa Clara today. The heat didn’t help, I’m sure.
Based on peak flow data and symptoms, the air is still way less of a problem than the indoor air in our middle school.
The heat, though. Can’t sleep.
I really wish Embarbacedero Media would simply delete comments entirely rather than just removing the contents.
The eviscercated posts look like chalk outlines of corpses. I suppose that reflects the type of online community they want to live in.
A shame.