Other Corroborated
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 35.6 µg/m³ near Jackson across 1 covered metro home to 606,178 people.
Why we think this happened
Contemporaneous reporting links fires and dry conditions to Jackson-area poor air quality, while also naming smog and manufacturing as possible contributors. The broad cause is resolved only as other, and the episode remains local and event-specific.
Corroborated Independent reporting agrees on the cause, with no agency determination, monitor flag, or published assessment behind it.
WJTV / 97.7 The Beat of the Capital · Feb 15, 2022 corroborates
A contemporaneous Jackson report links dry conditions and fires with low air quality in Mississippi and quotes the Jackson fire chief discouraging burning. The report also mentions smog and manufacturing among possible contributors and does not isolate the share of measured PM2.5 caused by fire.
jhnewsandguide.com corroborates
heraldandnews.com corroborates
Evidence path
A cause is more convincing when the record connects three things: something happened, the air mass moved toward the region, and local instruments responded. Here is how much of that chain is documented for this event.
Source or mechanism
A contemporaneous Jackson report links dry conditions and fires with low air quality in Mississippi and quotes the Jackson fire chief discouraging burning. The report also mentions smog and manufacturing among possible contributors and does not…
View supporting source ↗Air-mass movement
The retained record does not yet show how air traveled from the proposed source to these metros. A trajectory replay or dated plume analysis belongs here.
Local response
EPA monitors recorded the event across 1 metro. The peak daily concentration is roughly 1.6 cigarette-equivalents at the outdoor daily rate.
Inspect the pollutant and weather signals ↓Event autopsy
Before, during, and after the episode: nearby pollutant monitors and surface-weather stations show what changed. This context tests the “Other” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
Jackson, MS
Monitor comparison window 2022-02-12 to 2022-02-18 · PM2.5 target: Hinds CC
106% above nearby days
29% lower than surrounding days
71% higher than surrounding days
106% higher than surrounding days
71% higher than surrounding days
56% higher than surrounding days
536% higher than surrounding days
42% higher than surrounding days
18% lower than surrounding days
12% higher than surrounding days
29% lower than surrounding days
Source: U.S. EPA AirData daily observations and, where available, nearby ASOS/AWOS surface observations. Values are descriptive medians over the retained monitor set; missing measurements remain missing. Transport and source evidence remain separate layers because this instrument pattern does not assign a cause by itself.
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.
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jackson, MS | 35.6 µg/m³ | 1.6 | Feb 15, 2022 | #18 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.
Public evidence library
Each card states what a source supports—and what it does not. Official records, research, reporting, community observations, and transparent inferences remain visibly different kinds of evidence.
Dry conditions, fires cause low air quality in MS
A contemporaneous Jackson report links dry conditions and fires with low air quality in Mississippi and quotes the Jackson fire chief discouraging burning. The report also mentions smog and manufacturing among possible contributors and does not isolate the share of measured PM2.5 caused by fire.
Corroborated Independent reporting agrees on the cause, with no agency determination, monitor flag, or published assessment behind it.
This episode was grouped from the monitor record by the catalog pipeline and given its cause from the evidence listed above. It has not been individually reviewed and signed off, so its boundaries, cause, and name may change as evidence accumulates. Grouping policy common_sense_root_cause_grouping.v2. The cause label reflects the assembled evidence above, not an IAQng detection formula. If it is wrong, tell us.