BOISE — It’s the height of fire season and the Treasure Valley is full of smoke.
It's possible some of the smoke is coming from fires in the region like the Rattlesnake Creek Fire up by Riggins, but the National Weather Service says most of that smoke is staying north and blowing off to the east. Instead, they say the smoke in the valley is being blown in from fires in Northern California and southwestern Oregon.
“Smoke can travel a long ways,” said Tim Barker, a science and operations officer with the NWS. “If there's a hot enough fire it can put it up in the atmosphere and then that will go travel longer.”
The National Weather Service and other agencies continually track this information. They look at weather patterns to make a forecast.
“To see where things will get better for a while and then get worse as other fires make more smoke,” Barker said.
The agency uses satellites to detect where fires are and to watch how much smoke they are producing. They also track winds and temperatures that control where that smoke will blow.
“At night time when it gets cold that will trap smoke down near the surface,” Barker said. “So, in the afternoon when it gets warmer that smoke will then lift and get carried off by the winds so all of that kind of interplay of weather and smoke is what goes into making forecasts.”