First Alert Weather In-Depth: Another summer with wildfires

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The massive wildfires in the western U.S. have produced another destructive year, especially in northern California.

The “park” wildfire is still out-of- control with thousands structures being destroyed. Going by the numbers for the U.S. wildfire season, at least 89 active wildfires are burning with will over 2,000,000 acres having been scorched. in order to battle these fires more than 27,000 firefighters and support personnel are trying to get these fires under control.

For Western News York, it’s the residual smoke that is most difficult. Computer modeling can pinpoint the fires in Northern California and as this smoke moves across the country communities in portions in Nevada, Utah even in the Colorado are experiencing very poor air quality.

Our weather usually moves from west to east and consequently we have had our own hazy skies. More recently visibility has been pretty good, but some computer modeling is showing a possibly a return to hazy wildfire smoke in the coming days.

It appears this summer season is nowhere near the very poor conditions from last summer. Thus far, most of the lighter smoke has been focused in the upper layers of the atmosphere with only miniscule amounts actually reaching the surface. This air quality is something we monitor very closely and judging by the numbers the vast majority of viewers will not have a problem.

So far, there have been no any air quality alerts.  However, if you fall into the category of “very sensitive” or have respiratory issues, you may want to stay indoors or wear a mask over the next couple of days.