How Clean is the Air you Breathe?
A brief thunderstorm moved through Adams County on Tuesday night, August 12th. Lightning sparked several fires in the region. By Wednesday morning, haze hung on the horizon and the smell of smoke was in the air. Is the air quality bad enough to alter your outdoor activities today?
Adams County residents can now check local air quality with a couple of clicks.
The Adams Soil and Water Conservation District purchased two Purple Air monitors to track air quality in Council and Indian Valley. Meadows Valley Fire District also installed a sensor in New Meadows.
Anyone can access real-time air quality data by visiting the Purple Air website, purpleair.com. From the homepage, click the Map tab and zoom in to Adams County. Select the button near Council to see air quality at the Council School District. Choose the button at the south end of the county for the ASWCD Indian Valley site.
The buttons will vary in color from green to yellow, orange or purple, depending on current smoke density. Pop-up boxes show the ten-minute average PM2.5 reading for the chosen site, and a graph tracks changing conditions over the past 24 hours.
PM2.5 is particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers or smaller. These fine particles in wildfire smoke pose a health hazard because they can be inhaled deep into the lungs and even get into the bloodstream. Breathing fine particles can cause short-term irritation, like watery eyes and coughing. It can also lead to long-term health problems.
With students heading back to school and fall sports getting underway, Council School District coaches and administrators welcomed the access to local air quality data.
“We are happy to have local information available, particularly in August and September when fires are often happening in the area,” said Brian Joyce, secondary principal in Council.
“Now we can monitor local air quality for our kids’ outdoor sports and activities, particularly for football, but also recess and outdoor activities.”
Prior to installing a Purple Air monitor at the Council schools, officials had to refer to air quality sensors as far away as McCall or Weiser to determine whether to keep youngsters indoors or cancel football games.
“An example of this not working well was last year with the Lava Fire near Indian Valley,” Joyce said. “The smoke cloud was going directly into McCall, so when we got onto the air quality website, the McCall sensor showed the air quality as purple. But the air quality in Council wasn’t that bad.”
Before the advent of reliable and affordable air quality sensors, coaches and teachers relied on a visual smoke assessment by looking at the Council “C” on the hill.
“If we could clearly see the C, we allowed the activity,” Joyce explained. “It wasn’t the best gauge, so having an actual monitor in the valley located right at the school will be extremely helpful for us to make those decisions.”
To learn more about the Adams Soil and Water Conservation District, visit the website at adamsconservationdistrict.org.
