Smoke from a series of wildfires that still wanted to get out of control turned the Bay Area into the equivalent of a giant smoky dome, canceling college classes on Wednesday, making people sick and warning airmen not to go outside to go.
It also made the Bay Area air the dirtiest in the world early in the afternoon as ash from the dozens of lightning caused fires engulfed cars, houses and yards.
“You see through the window,” said Dileepa Zarate, a teacher who lives in Milpitas, “and it’s just a gray mist.”
“It was like snow,” San Jose resident Julie Moblad said of her arrival to work at her Los Gatos office, where the parking lot was covered in white ash.
And the conditions will not change for a while. The Bay Quality Air Quality Management District extended the advisory Spare the Air until Sunday, even though the warm temperatures have dropped slightly in the coming days.
“Just from the sheer number of major fires we are currently experiencing,” said meteorologist Drew Peterson, “it will unfortunately be a bit annoying.”
Purple Air, a company that monitors global air quality through sensors stationed around the world, reported this afternoon an unofficial air quality index of 417 at Casa Loma McKean, just outside Morgan Hill. The number reflects the 10-minute average of individuals in the air, and anything above 400 indicates a health warning of emergencies if people are exposed to it for more than 24 hours.
The index also rose more than 400 at Donner Lake on Wednesday morning and was more than 300 in various spots in the region. By comparison, at the same time a measurement of 165 in the South American nation of Argentina was the highest anywhere in the world, according to Purple Air.
“This is absolutely the worst we’ve experienced this year, and possibly the worst since Camp Fire in 2018,” said Erin DeMeritt, a spokeswoman for the district’s air quality management department. “We also had the Kincade Fire (in Sonoma County) last year. But even that was not the case, simply because there are so many of them and such limited resources to combat them. ”
Purple Air recorded measurements of more than 500 during the Camp Fire in Paradise, a level that a UC Berkeley study said was related to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
The management district, which also produces official air quality measurements for the region, said the San Jose Knox Area Avenue area had an afternoon 193; anything more than 200 is considered very unhealthy for any physical person to be in for a long period of time.
“When I got here at 7:15 a.m. and rolled down my window to get into the garage, I was surprised by the smell of smoke,” said Concord resident Mary Schad, who works in the Kaiser building. in Oakland. “We could also smell the smoke in the building on the (22nd) floor.”
Zarate said she took online classes at her home when she felt sick with a headache after stepping outside to walk her dog.
“It smells like a fire,” she said.
In Gilroy the private substance read 187, and elsewhere in San Jose it was 184. The air was also considered unusual in Pleasanton (176), East Oakland (159) and Livermore (158).
Any readings of 151-200 are considered unhealthy for everyone, according to the district air traffic control.
It all caused Moblad’s eyes.
“Blowing heat, we have lost power, and now these are burning,” Moblad said. “It’s too much.”
The smoke only created the scorching hot temperatures in the far inland areas of the region that needed more freezing. By noon it was 99 degrees in Pittsburg, 98 in Concord and 97 in Livermore and forecasters said those temps were likely to be more than 100 degrees.
The first seeds of a while from that hot spell began to creep closer to the shore, said spokesman Roger Gass, thanks to the return of the usual wind on the shore that was blown by a high pressure bubble from the south that brought the heat up.
At San Jose International Airport, the afternoon was 85 degrees, a dip of 6 degrees from the same time the day before, Gass said. In Oakland, it was 79 degrees. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, Gass said, temperatures in the lower elevations remained in the lower elevations in the 1960s and plummeted above 90 in the mountains.
“There’s just so much smoke, it’s actually kept the temperatures a little bit,” Gass said.
The smoke is a result of the fires of SCU Lightning Complex in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties; the LNU Lightning Complex fires in counties, Napa, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties; and the CZU Lightning Complex fire in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.
A heavy layer of smoke would hover about 2,000 feet above the surface all Friday, Peterson said. Wood burning is prohibited during the Spare the Air Alert, and air quality officials encourage people to stay indoors and close their windows as much as possible. Those with breathing problems should be extra careful.
“The short long story is that people need to be prepared for a long period of unusual air,” Peterson said. “It will be cloudy, but there will be cloudy smoke. It can also rain if. ”
Staff writers Daniel Wu and Alejandra Armstrong contributed to this report.
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