The smoke that has been wafting through Fremont County this week is mostly coming from wildfires in central Oregon, local National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Jones said Tuesday.
“We’ve had an area of high pressure sitting down over the Four Corners,” Jones explained. “Those high-pressure systems rotate clockwise and bring that smoke from the west … back across Wyoming. And so that’s where we’ve seen the smoke (coming from).”
In particular, Jones said the 64,000-acre Falls Fire north of Bend, Oregon, has been “pumping out a good amount of smoke” and is “definitely chugging this morning,” while the Cow Valley Fire in eastern Oregon has grown to cover almost 133,500 acres.
“Those larger fires are the ones that have been responsible for … our smoke,” Jones said.
Wildfires are burning in Idaho as well, Jones said, but those are much smaller by comparison, ranging from 140 to 1,275 acres.
“The bulk of the smoke has been coming out of (Oregon),” he said.
Forecast
Fremont County saw some rain on Monday that “cleared out” the smoke from the local area for the afternoon, Jones noted, but the haze returned later that evening.
He predicted that the same pattern will play out for the rest of the week, too, since the Four Corners high-pressure system is expected to “hang around,” and Fremont County is forecast to continue getting the “afternoon showers” that are “typical” for the area during the summer months.
The Four Corners system could also move west, however, Jones added, and that could “cut off the flow” of smoke into Wyoming.
“We’ll see if that changes things by the time we get to the weekend,” he said.
There are currently no Air Quality alerts listed for Fremont County, but the Air Quality Index for Riverton, Lander, Dubois, and South Pass are listed as Moderate, meaning “unusually sensitive people” should “reduce outdoor activity” and “go inside” if they experience symptoms.
For more information call the NWS Riverton office at 857-3878.