r/Eugene • u/VictoriousPossum • Oct 14 '24
This satellite photo from yesterday shows why it's been smokey lately. jiggly
21
u/Mantis_Toboggan--MD Oct 14 '24
And it's been a lucky year actually, up until a couple weeks ago we had been getting a nice wind from the west that was keeping up relatively clear. Now the winds have changed and were finally getting some of the smoke. Been checking daily in the morning and have been thanking that we've hardly gone over 70ppm this year thanks to he winds, most of the fire season we rarely saw over 30-50ppm. Bend and other places to the east on the other hand have been around 150ppm since the fires started during the summer and Oakridge has been frequently clocking 200ppm or more.
19
u/VictoriousPossum Oct 14 '24
This image is from https://zoom.earth/maps/satellite-hd/#view=43.75891,-122.99687,8.62z
For more info on the fires that are creating the smoke, check out https://app.watchduty.org
17
8
u/Zealousideal_Owl9621 Oct 14 '24
My lungs can't take this place much longer.
10
u/No_Acanthaceae_9641 Oct 14 '24
I hear you. I am sensitive to smoke, and I've been having some bad headaches lately. Looking forward to some steady rain.
-4
Oct 14 '24
[deleted]
12
u/kurtzsun5 Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24
If this was ever truly called the valley of death, it's not due to the meaning you think.
-1
u/Proud_Cauliflower400 Oct 15 '24
Please stop perpetuating a white person narrative that's been perpetuated since the 1920's. Yup any of us that had grandparents or great-grandparents from that time heard this growing up from them. It's a misnomer, a wivestale, an untruth. The only thing the would have thought of as a "sickness" would have been non indigenous invaders or the diseases we brought with us and the disease we still are.
8
u/happilyretired23 Oct 14 '24
And yet despite how it looks here, Bend and Redmond have consistently had worse air quality (at least measured by PM 2.5) than Eugene recently. Check out Purpleair to see some numbers.
8
u/labelm8 Oct 14 '24
Bend has been getting absolutely reamed with smoke this season...I feel bad for them.
3
4
u/reddogisdumb Oct 14 '24
If you think this is "bad air" then you definitely shouldn't live in Eugene (or really most cities in America). This is moderate. It can get quite worse than this. This has been (and continues to be) a "good air summer" for us.
AQI of 60 averaged over the whole day is very minor. We've had several summers where the whole day average is 3X that (or more) and continuing for a week or longer.
9
Oct 14 '24
Yea we have really had a mild year in terms of smoke in town this summer, especially how many acres burned this year
3
1
u/sillygreenfaery Oct 15 '24
Are those controlled or wild?
5
u/VictoriousPossum Oct 15 '24
I’m pretty sure they are all wild, and some of them have been going for awhile. And as others have pointed out, we’ve actually been pretty lucky this year in terms of the wind keeping the air relatively clear considering all the fires that have been burning nearby for months.
1
u/keynoko Oct 15 '24
How unusual is it that this is happening in mid October?
2
u/MamaLiza14 Oct 15 '24
Not unusual. Fires stop when rains saturate, some Octobers are dryer than others
1
2
u/BatSniper Oct 15 '24
The colder air also keeps the smoke lower also, as someone who works within forestry I have to say this has been a really good year for fire. We haven’t had much rain at all this summer or fall yet all the fires have are relatively smaller and have been managed pretty well. No major resources lost and honestly some good fire on the ground for future fire ecology. As Oregonians we should really be considering this fire season as a win, a little fall smoke is better than an unbearable august/September. Only annoying part is the hiking trails in the west cascades have been closed due to closed roads and trailheads.
Definitely need that fall rain for the trees planted this year though, not many of them are getting the resources they need this time of year.
1
35
u/jawid72 Pisgah Poster Oct 14 '24
So...fire