Wildfire smoke
2021-08-01 3-area wildfire-smoke episode
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 53.5 µg/m³ near Kansas City across 6 covered metros home to 7.2 million people. 4 metros 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 ≈ 3.1 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 22 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 wildfire-smoke 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 wildfire-smoke as the root cause. The grouping includes only events linked by explicit shared episode evidence; otherwise this remains a single-event episode.
Sequence: Kansas City (Aug 1) → Wichita (Aug 1) → Omaha (Aug 1) → Des Moines (Aug 1) → Oklahoma City (Aug 2) → Tulsa (Aug 2)
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas City, MO-KS | 53.5 µg/m³ | 4.5 | Aug 1, 2021 | #7 of its top days |
| Wichita, KS | 51.7 µg/m³ | 6.5 | Aug 2, 2021 | #4 of its top days |
| Oklahoma City, OK | 50.5 µg/m³ | 4.2 | Aug 2, 2021 | #2 of its top days |
| Tulsa, OK | 50.3 µg/m³ | 4.0 | Aug 2, 2021 | #4 of its top days |
| Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA | 39.7 µg/m³ | 1.8 | Aug 1, 2021 | #24 of its top days |
| Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA | 39.2 µg/m³ | 1.8 | Aug 1, 2021 | #22 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 7
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier IF — Fire - Canadian. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IF, Fire - Canadian.) on 52 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-08-02, identifying wildfire smoke 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 IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 40 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-08-01, identifying wildfire smoke 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 IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 48 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-08-02, identifying wildfire smoke 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 IF — Fire - Canadian. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IF, Fire - Canadian.) on 48 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-08-01, identifying wildfire smoke 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 IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 96 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-08-03, identifying wildfire smoke 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 IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 96 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-08-02, identifying wildfire smoke 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 IT — Wildfire-U. S. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IT, Wildfire-U. S.) on 88 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2021-08-01, identifying wildfire smoke as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
NWS Air Quality Alert 1
- Air Quality Alert AQAEAX An archived NWS Air Quality Alert for Kansas City, MO-KS, issued 2021-08-02T16:40Z, explicitly identifies wildfire smoke. IEM is the archive, not the official system of record.
News discovery (GDELT) 2
- Canadian wildfires' smoke causing air quality issues in Iowa The supplied wire-story title explicitly attributes Iowa air-quality problems during the event window to Canadian wildfire smoke; the page could not be retrieved.
- Wildfire smoke continues to affect Wichita air quality The contemporaneous local title explicitly states that wildfire smoke affected Wichita air quality; full text was unavailable.
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.