The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Haze, smoky smell blanket many cities
Effects stretch from Sierra Nevadas to Sacramento.
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — For two weeks a dull haze and the faint smell of smoke from distant blazes have blanketed many California cities, forcing summer campers to stay inside, obscuring normally bright skylines and leaving cars covered with ash.
Smoky air from blowing winds is nothing new in California, but air quality experts say it’s rare for the dirty air to linger for so long, a reality of ever-larger fires that take longer to extinguish.
The haze stretches from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range to Sacramento and hovers over the San Francisco Bay Area, with most major population centers in between suffering air quality that’s considered dangerous for children, the elderly and people with asthma or other respiratory conditions.
Kaela Baylis of Sacramento used to take her nearly 2-year-old son outside twice a day, but has only gone in the morning the last 10 days.
“He asks to go outside a lot in the afternoon,” she said Wednesday as they strolled through a park.
The fires have combined to produce unhealthy air that has drifted as far east as Salt Lake City, 450 miles away.
The skies there were so murky that residents couldn’t even see the nearby mountain range that hovers over the valley earlier this week. Utah air quality officials warned children and seniors to limit time outside.
The skies cleared a bit on Wednesday in Utah’s capital city, but more smoke is expected to blow in over the weekend, National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Rogowski said.
Thursday marked the Sacramento region’s 14th straight “Spare the Air” day, when people are encouraged not to drive and add further pollutants to the air — the longest stretch since at least 2001. A similar warning is effect in the San Francisco Bay Area.