What started as five individual fires on forest and rangeland on the Colville Reservation have combined into the Cold Springs Canyon Fire Complex. As of late Monday afternoon, the fire had covered more than 10,000 acres. Three other fires in the same area of the state have burned an additional 3,000 acres.
Strong winds out of the east-northeast have fanned the fires while also grounding air support operations for the firefighters. Those same winds are pushing plumes of smoke toward the Cascade Crest, and state forecasters expect some of that smoke to make its way into western Washington at or near ground level. That could cause air quality to degrade into moderate or worse levels by Tuesday morning.
The Washington Department of Health offers detailed information on how residents can best deal with wildfire smoke impacts. That information can be found here: https://www.doh.wa.gov/CommunityandEnvironment/AirQuality/SmokeFromFires
Washington’s complete network of Air Monitoring Stations — including those managed and maintained by ORCAA — and the direct impacts of wildfire smoke can be found here: https://fire.airnow.gov/
Additional information on wildfires and smoke from wildfires is available at http://wasmoke.blogspot.com/
ORCAA will continue to monitor this possible smoke event and will report any changes of note.