Maybe you can breathe on Friday

COEUR d'ALENE — It wasn't a typical first day of college for John Warton.

The North Idaho College student walked to classes Monday with a face mask because of his sensitivity to the wildfire smoke that’s stuck the air quality between "unhealthy" and "hazardous" in the Inland Northwest.

"I moved here from Salt Lake City, where they had bad inversions during the winter," Warton said. "I'm going to have my family send a more permanent mask."

Warton said he has had headaches from poor air quality, so he was being cautious in North Idaho, where the air quality ranged from unhealthy to very unhealthy on Monday.

Shawn Sweetapple, IDEQ's regional air quality manager in Coeur d'Alene, said the poor air quality is expected to persist through Thursday.

"There may be a chance of showers in different places that may help, but regionwide it will stay pretty consistent," he said.

Fairly worrisome

The prediction may impact attendance at the North Idaho State Fair, which begins its five-day run on Wednesday.

Sweetapple said the air quality in some areas of North Idaho, including Coeur d'Alene and Sandpoint, popped in and out of the "hazardous" level late Sunday night.

Joey Clevenger, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said smoke relief is expected Thursday because westerly winds are predicted.

"We should see some cleaner air filtering into the region," he said, adding that additional fires could always limit that improvement.

He said the smoke has kept temperatures 10 to 15 degrees cooler than what was predicted. He said temperatures are expected to gradually cool off to highs in the mid-70s for this weekend.

"There's a chance of precipitation late Sunday, which would help clear out the smoke, too," Clevenger said.

Weather conditions like temperature and wind can quickly change air quality readings.

"Typically, once the sun is up, the air quality improves and the morning inversion breaks," Sweetapple said.

The pits

Spokane had the worst air quality in the country on Monday morning when the air quality index reached 382 out of 500, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Any reading above 300 is hazardous.

"There is a slight ridge between here and there, so that may have made the difference," said Sweetapple, comparing both sides of the state line. "But mostly it's probably just the luck of the draw and the way the weather is moving in."

Some areas south of Coeur d'Alene were downgraded to unhealthy levels on Monday.

"We're all in the same boat and it looks like we'll be here a while with the same weather pattern," Sweetapple said. "It's going to take a major weather change to affect those big fires."

Sweetapple said most of the smoke in this area is coming from the fires in British Columbia, but the totality of fires in the Northwest, including North Idaho and Washington, is increasing the problem.

Fires in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest include:

- The 2,000-acre Rampike Fire between Shoshone Creek and the Montana border in the Coeur d'Alene River Ranger District was 0 percent contained on Monday.

- The 2,555-acre Surprise Creek Fire east of Farragut State Park on the Bonner-Shoshone county line in the Coeur d'Alene River Ranger District was 19 percent contained.

- The 5,524-acre Cougar Fire east of Hope in the Sandpoint Ranger District was 31 percent contained.

- The 6,032-acre Copper Mountain Fire near the Canadian border in the Bonners Ferry Ranger District was 7 percent contained.

- The 870-acre Smith Creek Fire west of Bonners Ferry was 5 percent contained.

Breathe deep

Katherine Hoyer, public information officer for the Panhandle Health District, said the best way to protect yourself from poor air quality is to stay indoors.

So other than use masks to battle the bad air’s cumulative nastiness, what’s a body to do?

IDEQ’s Sweetapple didn’t offer much help on that front.

"Unfortunately,” he said, “we're at the mercy of Mother Nature to get things moving."