It’s not your imagination. Air quality experts say wildfire smoke has been worse than usual this summer in Idaho.
Kati Chachere monitors air quality for the team managing the Wapiti Fire burning just west of Stanley.
“Last week, we actually experienced some of the worst smoke that Idaho has seen in the past 25 years,” Chachere said.
Some of that smoke came from fires burning in central Oregon.
But people have been dining on the locally grown, organic smoke from the Wapiti and nearby Middle Fork Complex fires ever since.
Chachere said our beautiful mountains are part of the reason the smoke can’t escape.
“Because the atmosphere can’t mix to the height of the mountains surrounding these communities, that’s why the smoke has been so stuck,” she said.
Mike Toole with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality said long stretches of smoke lingering during the summer is common in Boise.
What’s different this year is how concentrated the smoke has been.
Toole said he needs more data before he can definitively say this is the worst smoke year we’ve seen.
“But I would say at this point it’s on par to be one of the most significant wildfire seasons we’ve had in the past decade,” he said.
Both he and Chachere believe these unhealthy conditions will stick around into the foreseeable future.
The Wapiti and Middle Fork Complex fires, which have been supplying a lot of the recent smoke, aren’t expected to burn out until October.
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