Fireworks
2021-07-04 2-area fireworks episode
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 46.6 µg/m³ near Charlotte across 4 covered metros home to 5.3 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 ≈ 1.3 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 7.1 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.
Sequence: Augusta (Jul 4) → Lakeland (Jul 4) → North Port (Jul 4) → Charlotte (Jul 5)
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC | 46.6 µg/m³ | 2.1 | Jul 5, 2021 | #5 of its top days |
| Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC | 43.5 µg/m³ | 2.0 | Jul 4, 2021 | #16 of its top days |
| Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL | 26.4 µg/m³ | 1.2 | Jul 4, 2021 | #16 of its top days |
| North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL | 25.3 µg/m³ | 1.2 | Jul 4, 2021 | #23 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
Official records
- NOAA Storm Events Dust Storm, ARIZONA, Jul 3, 2021 "Strong thunderstorms developed in the afternoon over the high terrain of central and southern Arizona before spreading to the lower deserts through the evening, with new development driven mostly by strong outflow bounda…" record →
EPA AQS monitor qualifier 7
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 13 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-07-04, 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 13 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-07-05, 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 RH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RH, Fireworks.) on 48 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-07-04, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 17 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-07-05, 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 RH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RH, Fireworks.) on 45 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-07-05, identifying fireworks as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IH — Fireworks. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IH, Fireworks.) on 2 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-07-04, 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 8 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-07-04, 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.
Agency and publisher pages 1
- Final Report for PM2.5 Exceedances in Georgia, 2021 The state report attributes Augusta's July 4, 2021 PM2.5 exceedance (43.5 µg/m3) to local fireworks. It does not assess the linked Charlotte observation.
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.