Is air pollution ok just because it’s wildfire caused? High Latitude Style

Fairbanks is known as the Nation’s city with the worst air quality

When you are a regular reader of my blog you have certainly read my posts about Fairbanks’ winter air quality problem and that Alaska doesn’t gurantee pristine air. When you just recently joined the High Latitude Style Tribe you may have read about the bad air quality on an evening on the deck at the Last Frontier.

Huges efforts are made to reduce winter air pollution. In winter, temperatures are so low that nobody gets outside to breath the air. Only at 40 below, Fairbanksans go out in a bikini for a photo which is just 5 minutes or less. In summer, air pollution due to wildfires is often much worse than air pollution due to local emission accumulated under the inversion in winter. However, in summer, people are outside. They mow their lawn, play, grill, hike, canoe, or just sit on their decks to catch some sunrays to build up their vitamin D levels (for surviving the winter without getting seasonal depression syndrom or cabin fiver).

Nothing is done against the wildfires. It is just let-it-burn until human life, structure or historic monuments are endangered. In winter, we are asked to not burn wood when there is an air-pollution alert. It’s to protect our health and that’s a good thing! However, what’s the catch? Shouldn’t the fires be fought to protect our health in summer? Long-term exposure can also endanger human life!

over 50 years old fashion blogger in floral skirt and graphic T under blue sky — Outfit details: Talbots floral print skirt, Michael Kors orange patent leather cork wedges, statement garnet necklace and bracelet, Hermes collier de chien leather band, Paloma Picasso sunglasses, jade and enamel buckle belt and “Love to Dance” graphic T-shirt (all own)

It’s scary close

Currently there are two fires burning in the Fairbanks vicinity. Depending on the wind direction Fairbanks is under the influence of their smoke. The image below shows the smoke over Fairbanks on June 27, 2019 in the visible range as seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard of NASA’s Terra satellite. There are two large areas of light brown smoke from the Shovel Creek and Nugget Creek wildfires northwest and northeast of Fairbanks, respectively. The red hot spots are heat signatures indicative of fires. Both fires started by lightning strikes. Officials are expecting the fires’ smoke to affect Fairbanksans in the next weeks. In plain English, until August when the so-called Alaska monsoon sets in. Note it’s not really a monsoon, but August is our wettest month.

MODIS visible image showing the smoke and fires near Fairbanks Alaska on June 27, 2019 — Visible image as recorded by MODIS onboard of Terra over Eastcentral Alaska on June 27, 2019. The river in the upper part of image is the Yukon. The river from the lower right to the mid left is the Tanana that flows into the the Yukon farther west. The round white pathes are convective clouds that formed over the mountains of the Alaska Range (bottom) and the White Mountains (middle left to right top). The fuzzy white areas are pyroclouds over the fires. The red dots are the heat signatures of the fires. The grayish white areas are smoke. Fairbanks is in the lower third in the middle of the image with the Shovel Creek fire to the northwest and the Nuggest Creek fire 35 miles to the Northeast. There is another fire burning in the Yukon Flats north of the Yukon and the Nuggest Creek fire. Image Credit: NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). From: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2019/smoke-from-alaskas-shovel-creek-and-nugget-creek-fires

There are firefighting activities in the Murphy Dome area. One of my students and one of my girlfriends as well as several colleagues live in this area. The Nugget Creek fire is 35 miles northeast of Fairbanks around Mile 30 Chena Hot Springs Road in the Chena River State Recreation Area. Some friends and colleagues live in this area.

When a white night becomes dark you know there is a fire

When we got back to the parking lot after dancing until 10:45 pm on Saturday night, the Sun was pink (see photo below). Moreover, the lights of the street lamps were on. They all have a light sensor. On a typical summer night, no street laterns are on. This means the ash and PM in the air dimmed the light so strong that the sensors behaved like they do at dawn: Switch on the lights.

smoke from wildfires dime the light of the Sun so badly that the street lights are on — Old Steese Highway view to the west towards Walmart and Mt. McKinley Bank on Saturday June 28, 2019 at 10:45 pm. The streets lights and lights at the buildings are on, which is quite unusual at this time in the year.

Ash snowed like after the St. Augustine volcano eruption in 2006

On Sunday morning, ash fell onto our deck. You could literally see it fall. It looked like snowing. The air smelled like you are licking an asher. Well, Interior Alaska summers smell like a huge bonfire.

Cat on an ash covered deck munching — Photo of Jungchen on the deck. The white spots are ash.

Summer concentrations are worse than those in winter

The diagram below bases on the raw data of the NCORE measurements in Fairbanks downloaded from EPA. You can see the first peak that related to my post on an evening at the Last Frontier. Note that it was called moderate pollution! The pollution went down below the NAAQS when the rain set in and washed out the ashes and particles. To keep the air in our house at bay we run our AirFree air purifier 24/7.

A bit about air quality regulation

For my international readers let me quickly define the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). The NAAQS for particulate matter less or equal to 2.5 μm in diameter – called PM_2.5 98^th percentile, averaged over 3 years, is 35 μg/m³. Note that PM_2.5 is 70 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Various medical publications connected severe health issues to short and long term exposure to PM_2.5. Note that the World Health Organisation recommends 25 μg/m³ not to be exceeded.

Particulate matter less or equal to 10 μm in diameter is called PM₁₀. The 24 hours average PM₁₀ NAAQS not to be exceeded more than once per year on average over 3 years is 150 μg/m³. The white and gray ash flakes that you see on our deck in the photo below are greater than several mm (1 mm = 0.0393701 inch).

graph showing the temporal evolution of hourly air quality in Fairbanks Alaska — Temporal evolution of hourly particulate matter of less or equal 2.5 and l0 micrometer in diameter starting on June 23, 2019. Data downloaded from EPA

Look of the Day

The photos for the look of the day were taken prior to the poor air quality episode. You can see the clear blue sky in the background of some of the summer outfit photos. I went for a posh, but comfy graphic tee with floral skirt and wedge sandals look in Pantome colors of the year. What are you wearing on these hot summer days? Just curious.

sideview of trendy summer style mix of graphic T-shirt with printed skirt — Outfit details: Talbots floral print skirt, Michael Kors orange patent leather cork wedges, statement garnet necklace and bracelet, Hermes collier de chien leather band, Paloma Picasso sunglasses, enamel and jade buckle belt, and “Love to Dance” graphic T-shirt (all own)

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Have a great Independence Day!

Photos of me: G. Kramm

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3 thoughts on “Is air pollution ok just because it’s wildfire caused?”

yourtrueselfblog says:

2019-07-04 at 12:07

Hi, Nicole – Great commentary! I’m glad you’re speaking up and I wish you the best of health. You are more gorgeous than ever and I hope your health is going along with it. It certainly looks like it because it’s obvious that your dancing is doing you well. XO, Angie – your true self blog

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Carrie @ Curly Crafty Mom says:

2019-07-04 at 06:53

Just love your colorful skirt and it picks up some of the colors in that vibrant tee! And, you def. do love to dance! 🙂 Interesting! I am always concerned about air quality, I have asthma and my kids both do too and it really does make a difference.

Carrie

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Julie | This Main Line Life says:

2019-07-04 at 03:05

That’s really interesting. I didn’t realize that this was such a problem in Alaska. Cute skirt too.

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Is air pollution ok just because it’s wildfire caused?