Sydney sky turns toxic after fires
Sydney was blanketed in a smoky haze yesterday morning, after weekend hazard-reduction burns left parts of the city with air quality so poor it was more than twice the hazardous level, and more than five times as bad as the air quality in Beijing.
Smoke from weekend hazard reductions, including a large state forest burn at Colo Heights on the weekend, was still covering Sydney yesterday, and NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman Ben Shepherd said it was not expected to clear until today.
‘‘Over the last 24 hours there haven’t been any new ignitions, but some of those have continued to burn,’’ he said.
‘‘What we’ve seen across Sydney is relatively light winds, so a lot of this smoke has basically hung around in the basin, and moved around.
‘‘Yesterday we saw it more in the west and the south-west, then overnight it started to drain back towards the coast.’’ Shepherd said the southerly change, forecast to bring showers last night , should help clear up the smoke.
The worst affected region was Sydney’s north-west, with the highest air quality index level reaching 476 between 8am and 9am – more than double the hazardous level of 200.
Sydney’s south-west was also badly affected by smoke, with an air quality index of 322. In Sydney’s east, the air quality was almost at hazardous levels at 186.
In comparison, the air quality index for Beijing as of 7am was 81.
Shepherd said the RFS was working closely with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage and the Bureau of Meteorology to keep the effect of hazard-reduction burning on air quality to a minimum. – Fairfax