Dozens of wildfires continue to burn across the western U.S. which has led to a lot of smoke and air quality issues, especially across Idaho, Montana and other states in the northern Rockies.  And while conditions remain ripe for fires to start and spread, USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey said the wildfire picture has improved here in the west, when compared to last week.

 

“We are still looking at a number of 100,000+ acre wildfires in various stages of containment.  We have one that’s been burning for a couple of months now, and we’ve got two fires in Oregon that have each burned more than 100,000 acres, one in NE Oregon, one in west central Oregon.  And then in California, the Mosquito Fire has recently become the state’s largest of the year to date.  It has chard more than 75,000 acres of vegetation.”

 

Rippey noted the cooler, showery conditions we’ve seen across the west are helping firefighting efforts.  At this point nearly, seven million acres have burned across the United States this year.

 

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