Air Quality

The red sun hanging over the Missoula valley is proof positive that heavy smoke from Washington and Oregon fires has poured into the area over the past few days.

UPDATE - 6:00 p.m. Sunday, December 15 The Stage One Air Alert for Missoula was cancelled by the Missoula City County Health Department. The air quality is now rated good to moderate for the Missoula valley.

Missoula's air quality is deteriorating because of an inversion that is trapping air down near the valley floor and may be approaching a level at which sensitive groups could be affected.

Smoke from the Lolo Creek Complex Fire has been drifting into the Missoula Valley since the two separate fires, the Schoolhouse and West Fork II, started over the weekend.

A panel presented by the American Lung Association on Missoula's air quality will be held Thursday evening in the city council chambers from 7 to 9 p.m.

A glance at the Sawtooth Fire Friday at sunset.

The Sawtooth Fire continues moving west.

The smoke is persistent.

As anyone who has spent any time outside on Monday, it's immediately apparent that wildfire smoke is especially bad in the Missoula valley.

The Missoula City County Health Department's website says when visibility gets down to 1.3 miles because of wildfire smoke, the air quality rating moves to 'hazardous'. At 5 a.m., The National Weather Service rated visibility at 3 miles.

The air quality in the Bitterroot Valley was “Unhealthy” Thursday Sept 8. The air is measured at a site in downtown Hamilton by the folks at Ravalli County Environmental Health. They expect the unhealthy levels will continue for at least another week, since the weather pattern shows no sign of changing. There are two higher levels of warning – Very Unhealthy and Hazardous.