Metro Vancouver issues air quality advisory because of Washington state fires
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Wildfires in Washington state have resulted in elevated concentrations of fine particulate matter over parts of southern B.C.
And that has caused Metro Vancouver to issue an air quality advisory for the central and eastern Fraser Valley.
People with medical conditions should avoid engaging in "strenuous exercise" until the advisory is lifted.
"Exposure is particularly a concern for infants, the elderly and those who have diabetes, and lung or heart disease," Metro Vancouver states on its website.
Real-time air-quality readings are available at airmap.ca and bcairquality.ca.
Hazy skies are visible over other areas of the Lower Mainland, including the North Shore mountains, but the advisory has not been announced for everywhere in the region.
Comments
2 Comments
Arachides
Aug 23, 2015 at 4:21pm
Without a serious effort to clean-up the underbrush and where feasible allowing fire to naturally recycle the landscape air quality warnings will become the new normal. For some reason the City of Vancouver still allows wood-burning fireplaces to operate at any time spewing their own noxious mix into the atmosphere we all share.
Luckily we haven't had any dry lightning storms over the Lower Mainland.
Dan Garson
Aug 23, 2015 at 9:06pm
Arachides, what you suggest would have been good advice a couple of decades ago but what we are seeing is fudamentally different. Abrupt climate change has happened, these fires are the beginning of massive fires that will transform Western North America, Siberia, Scandanavia.
This isn't underbrush burning up, this the end of the great coniferous forests that once covered a large chunk of the Northern hemisphere. In a few short years, the world will look quite different.