Weekend smoke originated out of state, unrelated to fires on Interstate 70 in Eagle County

The smoke obscuring Eagle County’s mountains comes from out of state, experts say. Coincidentally, multiple fire incidents caused closures on Interstate 70 near Vail and Gypsum on Saturday evening.

Smoke from fires in Wyoming and Utah is expected to cause hazy skies through Monday morning. According to the National Weather Service out of Denver and Boulder, “smoke transport” from the Yellow Lake Fire in Utah is expected to last through Sunday evening. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Colorado Smoke Blog also named the Pack Trail Fire and Fish Creek Fire in Wyoming as sources of smoke filtering through the state throughout the weekend and into the week in a blog post on Sunday.

“Today (Sunday), the heaviest smoke is expected on the Western Slope, especially along the I-70 corridor,” the blog post said. “Grand Junction, Palisade, Delta, Montrose, Rifle, Glenwood Springs, and Aspen will likely see the worst of it. Expect lingering smoke overnight Sunday night into Monday on the western slope.”

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Smoke from Wyoming is expected to move in on Monday, but it may hit more intensely on the Front Range than on the Western Slope, and will migrate southward into Tuesday.

Despite the smoke, there is minimal threat to Eagle County’s air quality. “Particulate (m)atter concentrations are (m)oderate at almost every location in Colorado,” the blog post said. Notably, the state’s nearest particulate monitoring stations to Eagle County are in Aspen and Rifle.

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However, other sources, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), confirmed low levels of particulate matter in Eagle County, with an air quality index ranging from 35 to 50. An air quality index of 50 or below is considered good air quality, while 51 to 100 is considered moderate air quality, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

NOAA also consistently updates its assessment of the “vertically integrated smoke” levels across the United States. This is an estimate of the total smoke mass within vertical columns that may affect visibility and weather. Eagle County’s vertically integrated smoke numbers ranged from 20 in Vail to 75 in Gypsum on Sunday, on a scale that extends to over 500. A lower number is preferable on both this scale and the following, near-surface smoke levels scale, but Eagle County’s numbers are nothing to be concerned about.

NOAA also reports near-surface smoke levels, which serve as a prediction of the fire-emitted fine particulate matter concentrations about eight meters above the ground. Eagle County’s numbers ranged from 12 in Vail to 40 in Gypsum, with a scale extending to over 200.

There were some fires in Eagle County on Saturday evening, all of which were rapidly handled by local fire departments and did not contribute to the smoky haze.

According to Eagle County Alerts issued by the Vail Public Safety Communications Center on Saturday evening, there were four separate fire incidents that closed parts of I-70 over the course of three hours on Saturday evening. This included a roughly 15-minute closure for a wildland fire in East Vail, a 35-minute closure for a vehicle fire in West Vail, a ten-minute closure on Vail Pass for a semi on fire and a 25-minute single lane closure near Gypsum for a smoking vehicle.

While the weekend saw warm and dry weather, “a truck fire is a normal call that we go on … I don’t think it had anything to do with the warm weather,” said Jake Savona, A-shift battalion chief with the Vail Fire Department.

However, under the current dry conditions, “our fuels are drying out right now, there’s always that potential for it to go from the highway into the wildland area,” increasing the urgency of putting out vehicle fires, Savona said.