The ongoing fires that have been plaguing British Columbia for most of the summer are causing air hazards across the province and even parts of the U.S. British Columbia might seem far away but the smoke tends to travel along the jetstreams bringing smoke and its accompanying degraded air quality across Canada and even down into the United States. In this image parts of Washington state, Idaho, and Montana are covered in smoke. This smoke will also drift eastward and dip into parts of Maine. So too smoke is also a contributor to climate change and those effects that are felt globally.
Particle pollution from wildfires, long known for containing soot and other fine particles known to be dangerous to human health, is much worse than previously thought, a new study from Georgia Tech, published in the May 2017 Nature Geoscience, has discovered. Naturally burning timber and brush from wildfires release dangerous particles into the air at a rate three times as high as levels previously known by the EPA. The study also found wildfires spew methanol, benzene, ozone and other noxious chemicals.
NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite collected this natural-color image using the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument on August 10, 2017. Actively burning areas are outlined in red. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner