As the Hazen Fire burns south of Buckeye, air quality for the rest of the Valley is expected to worsen.
That’s because a low pressure system coming from California is pushing winds from west to east. Wind gusts are expected to be the strongest in the afternoon and evening and could hit 30 miles an hour.
Those winds are blowing black smoke clouds over much of the Valley, as the invasive Salt Cedar bush continues to burn.
Michael Graves with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality says that combined with low cloud cover and small rain chances are creating conditions for fine particulate matter to spread.
"It’s the kind that can lodge deeper into your lungs, so that's gonna be a bit worse for health potentially than the larger particles like in dust," Graves said, “people who are sensitive to that, who have respiratory disease, may wanna, limit their time outdoors, just kind of monitor their health, if you're smelling smoke, you're breathing it," Graves said.
Graves says the wind is helping to prevent the smoke from settling, but it’s also making it easier for the fire to spread. Winds could slow and temperatures could rise come Wednesday when the system moves out.
-
Two ASU professors are showing a very personal documentary at the Venice International Film Festival, which is taking place through Sept. 12. And they’re doing it with new technology, which allows for a more immersive experience. -
Giant sequoias only grow naturally in California today. But they once ranged as far east as Colorado, Wyoming and Nevada, before the climate turned drier and pushed them into their current, narrower range. -
So-called process based restoration (PBR) has a number of ecological benefits. But it can make ecosystems more resilient to wildfires when they come, and better able to recover in their wake. -
From Spokane, Wash. to Pueblo County, Colo., fast-moving fires have again wreaked havoc in neighborhoods this summer. Now, a network of scientists, fire professionals and other experts have joined forces to seek research-based solutions to the problem. -
The U.S. Department of Transportation will provide more than $4 million in emergency funds to help repair and rebuild the Hart Mine Road Bridge in western Arizona.
