Summer’s air quality alerts a product of teamwork

Alexis Barker
NLJ News Editor
 
For the past month, the National Weather Service has been releasing air quality alerts due to wildfire smoke blanketing the area. 
As wildfires continue to burn across the West,  the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality assesses the amount of smoke and smoke potential in the area and determines whether or not the alert should be released, said Keith Guille, the agency’s public information officer. 
“These alerts are generally for the public so they know what activities they may or may not want to be planning,” Guille said. “It always depends on a person’s personal health whether or not the smoke could affect them. We suggest that someone with concerns talk to their physician.”

When looking at whether or not an alert is needed, he said, there are standards for the particulate matter that’s in the air, or the smoke that we can see. The standards are set federally, according to Guille.  
Included in the alerts recently is the specification that the air quality issues are related to smoke from western wildfires. 
“The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, Air Quality Division offers near real-time air quality data for Wyoming’s monitoring stations and health effects information to help the public interpret current conditions,” the notifications state. “Current air quality conditions across the state of Wyoming can be found at www.wyvisnet.com.” 
Guille said that forecasters for the state DEQ work with the National Weather Service with the information needed to issue the 24-hour alerts when air quality is poor. 
“Mainly, we are another dissemination tool for them. They monitor the air quality, looking at forecasts to see where the smoke will go. They determine the air quality is poor and notify us, we then put the information out,” said Susan Sanders, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Rapid City.