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Wildfire

Wildfires, Smoke, and Air Quality: A Survey of Programmatic Response in the West

Spinning past the autumnal equinox into fall, the West looks back on a summer marred by wildfire smoke. Here in Colorado, the Aspens have dropped their golden leaves, snow encrusts the high peaks, and I’m struck by the beauty of my backyard, which spent the majority of June, July, and August muted by smoke that — thankfully — blew in from elsewhere.  Over the last six weeks, checking AirNow before training has been phased out...

Preparing for a Changing Environment in Grand County, Colorado

The decade of the aughts witnessed the decimation of wide swaths of forest in Colorado due to a pine beetle infestation. This was no slow drip affair. What was a tree-to-tree process eventually swallowed whole green mountainsides morphing them into a desiccated dead-tree blight. Those dead trees, unable to hold moisture, were hundred-foot matchsticks during wildfire season. Over the past few decades, an ominous cycle prevailed. Warming temperatures due to climate change made life easier...

It’s Been a Bad Combo Out West: Wildfire Smoke and Training

This week’s featured articles are made possible thanks to the generous support of Masters World Cup 2018. The Canadian AQI is based on particulate matter 2.5 microns or smaller, but uses a 1-10+ scale with “1” being low health risk and “+” very high.) Gareth Williams, a member of Canada’s national U25 Team and a native of Kelowna, B.C., wrote in an email that the smoke was a near-constant companion this summer. “Summer has been...