UPDATE: The Pennsylvania DEP has extended its Code Orange Air Quality alert into Wednesday. In a statement issued Tuesday afternoon, officials urged residents of the area with underlying medical conditions to consider stay indoors if possible. “A code orange air quality alert means that air pollution concentrations within the region may become unhealthy for sensitive groups,” it said. “Sensitive groups include children; people suffering from asthma, heart disease or other lung diseases.; and the elderly. The effects of air pollution can be minimized by avoiding strenuous activity or exercise outdoors.” In a Tuesday afternoon tweet, officials from the NWS office at Mount Holly, N.J., said an area of smoke that is reducing visibility and causing breathing problems for sensitive individuals in the northeastern U.S. was moving through eastern Pennsylvania. “Thick smoke associated with Canadian wildfires is moving across Northeast Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey this hour,” they said. “It will continue through the evening and into the overnight.”
If it seems like there’s haze on the horizon, it’s not your imagination. Canadian and other wildfires–including one that broke out in Northampton County Monday–are to blame for the poor air quality across eastern Pennsylvania. In reponse to it, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection declared Tuesday a Code Orange Air Quality Action Day due to the pollutants in the air.
A code orange air quality alert means that air pollution concentrations within the region may be unhealthy for sensitive groups, including young children; people with asthma, emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease or other lung diseases; and the elderly.
The effects of the air pollution can be minimized by avoiding strenuous activity or exercise outdoors, the DEP said in a statement about its advisory, which was in place Tuesday for Bucks, Berks, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia counties in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Residents and businesses within the Air Quality Action Day areas were being strongly encouraged to voluntarily help reduce fine particulate matter air pollution by:
• Reducing or eliminating the use of wood-burning stoves.
• Avoiding the use of gas-powered lawn and garden equipment.
• Avoiding the open burning of leaves, trash and other materials.
Local and state fire safety officials were also cautioning residents against open burning, due to the extremely dry conditions that have allowed recent wildfires to spread out of control.
Due to the critical fire weather conditions that were expected Tuesday, the National Weather Service issued a red flag warning from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. for New Jersey and much of eastern Pennsylvania, including Bucks, Montgomery, Lehigh and Northampton counties.
A Red Flag Warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will occur shortly due to a combination of strong winds, low relative humidity and dry fuels on the ground.
“Any fires that develop may quickly get out of control and become difficult to contain,” the NWS said in a statement about the red flag warning.
According to the statement, in addition to relative humidity as low as 25 percent there was also a chance of “isolated dry thunderstorms, which could serve as an ignition source for fires” Tuesday.
Unfortunately for those who must fight any fires that break out–as well as individuals with breathing difficulties–there is little chance of rain in the near-term forecast for the Lehigh Valley region.
Above, haze is visible along the ridgeline of South Mountain in Fountain Hill, Lehigh County, Tuesday afternoon. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the bad air is a byproduct of wildfires burning across Canada and could affect individuals with lung and other diseases. Smaller fires have broken out closer to home due to extremely dry conditions that are forecast to persist through at least mid-June.
