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Wildfire smoke

2012-04-09 through 2012-04-11 wildfire-smoke episode affecting Jacksonville, FL

April 9, 2012 to April 11, 2012 · Origin: Northern Florida

Named source County Line Fire 34,936 acres , FL · ICS-209-PLUS FL-FNF-012017

Daily PM2.5 peaked at 82.8 µg/m³ near Jacksonville across 1 covered metro home to 1.8 million people. 1 metro placed a top-ten day in their record.

Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 6.4 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 11 million cigarettes. An awareness illustration of outdoor exposure at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette (Berkeley Earth), counting only the event's ranked days; not a medical dose.

Measured daily PM2.5 at EPA monitors, as cigarette-equivalents

Episode peak

-- cigarettes

The smoke map's scale, replayed over this event: the surface interpolates between covered metros' daily records, framed to the affected region. Hover for a reading, click a metro to pin it to the card. Days a monitor did not report draw nothing.

What happened, in the record

The supplied official assessment attributes unhealthy particulate matter around Jacksonville during April 9-11 to County Line Fire smoke, with incident meteorology corroborating dense smoke during the period.

Affected metros

MetroPeak PM2.5Cigarettes, whole eventPeak dayAll-time standing
Jacksonville, FL 82.8 µg/m³ 7.6 Apr 11, 2012 #2 of its top days

"Cigarettes, whole event" totals a metro's ranked event days at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette: what a person outdoors there breathed across the event, as the illustration. "All-time standing" is where this episode's days sit in each metro's ranked record (worst-area measure, since 1999). Full local context is on each metro's Air Records page.

The evidence

Agency and publisher pages 2

  • County Line Fire in Florida NASA Earth Observatory, Apr 11, 2012 · official NASA reports that smoke from the County Line Fire elevated particulate matter around and south of Jacksonville to unhealthy levels; the fire had burned about 25,000 acres by April 11.
  • County Line Wildfire Incident Action Plan, April 12, 2012 U.S. Forest Service, Apr 11, 2012 · corroborates The incident meteorologist forecast documented dense smoke and fog near the County Line Fire during the period of the Jacksonville air-quality event.

Status and provenance

Research preview: this record carries research-only status and its boundaries, cause, and name may change as evidence review completes. Grouping policy common_sense_root_cause_grouping.v2. The cause label reflects the assembled evidence above, not an IAQng detection formula.