Fireworks
2020-07-04 2-area fireworks episode
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 123.5 µg/m³ near Des Moines across 6 covered metros home to 6.3 million people. 1 metro recorded their worst day on record; 4 placed a top-ten day.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 3.7 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 23 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.
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
Supplied qualified evidence supports fireworks as the root cause. The grouping includes only events linked by explicit shared episode evidence; otherwise this remains a single-event episode. Supplied qualified evidence supports fireworks as the root cause. The grouping includes only events linked by explicit shared episode evidence; otherwise this remains a single-event episode. Supplied qualified evidence supports fireworks as the root cause. The grouping includes only events linked by explicit shared episode evidence; otherwise this remains a single-event episode.
Sequence: Des Moines (Jul 4) → Kansas City (Jul 4) → Omaha (Jul 4) → Greenville (Jul 4) → Wichita (Jul 4) → Chattanooga (Jul 5)
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA | 123.5 µg/m³ | 8.4 | Jul 4, 2020 | Worst day on record |
| Kansas City, MO-KS | 66.6 µg/m³ | 4.9 | Jul 4, 2020 | #2 of its top days |
| Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA | 64.5 µg/m³ | 5.4 | Jul 5, 2020 | #3 of its top days |
| Chattanooga, TN-GA | 55.9 µg/m³ | 2.5 | Jul 5, 2020 | #5 of its top days |
| Greenville-Anderson-Mauldin, SC | 41.4 µg/m³ | 1.9 | Jul 4, 2020 | #14 of its top days |
| Wichita, KS | 38 µg/m³ | 1.7 | Jul 4, 2020 | #21 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
EPA AQS monitor qualifier 10
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 22 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-05, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 11 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-04, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 4 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-04, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 3 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-05, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 48 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-04, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 51 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-05, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 4 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-04, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 6 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-04, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 14 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-05, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 8 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2020-07-05, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
Agency and publisher pages 2
- Iowa Exceedances of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards Iowa DNR lists July 4 and 5, 2020 PM2.5 exceedances at the Des Moines Polk County Health monitor, including 108.7 µg/m3 on July 4.
- City Source, Fall 2020 The City of Des Moines reported that the Iowa DNR's July 4 weekend poor-air-quality advisory for Des Moines stemmed from fireworks usage.
News discovery (GDELT) 1
- Air quality advisory issued for Kansas City because of lingering firework smoke The opened report cites a National Weather Service advisory stating that July Fourth fireworks smoke was trapped near the ground by a shallow inversion, producing very unhealthy Kansas City air on July 5. This directly supports fireworks for the Kansas City member but not independently for Wichita.
What remains uncertain
- An AQS informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not an EPA-concurred exclusion determination.
- The supplied evidence resolves cause but does not establish identity with another candidate episode.
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.