Prescribed fire Documented
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 35.3 µg/m³ near Wichita across 1 covered metro home to 661,217 people.
Why we think this happened
Qualified supplied evidence supports prescribed-fire smoke as the root cause of this event. The supplied record does not establish a coherent shared occurrence with neighboring candidates, so the episode remains event-specific.
Documented An agency or publisher page assesses this cause, without an agency record naming the event or an EPA qualifier on the data.
Kansas Department of Health and Environment · Apr 22, 2022 official
KDHE reports that on April 19 gusty south winds transported smoke from the prior day's widespread prescribed burning back over much of Kansas, producing short-term Moderate AQI impacts. It also notes widespread light smoke from Arizona and New Mexico wildfires during the week and says no PM2.5 NAAQS exceedance was recorded for the period.
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
KDHE reports that on April 19 gusty south winds transported smoke from the prior day's widespread prescribed burning back over much of Kansas, producing short-term Moderate AQI impacts. It also notes widespread light smoke from Arizona and New…
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 “Prescribed fire” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
Wichita, KS
Monitor comparison window 2022-04-16 to 2022-04-22 · PM2.5 target: PECK
151% above nearby days
About the same as surrounding days
91% higher than surrounding days
151% higher than surrounding days
91% higher than surrounding days
126% higher than surrounding days
47% higher than surrounding days
10% higher than surrounding days
25% lower than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
About the same as 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wichita, KS | 35.3 µg/m³ | 1.6 | Apr 19, 2022 | #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.
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.
Flint Hills Wildland Fire Update
KDHE reports that on April 19 gusty south winds transported smoke from the prior day's widespread prescribed burning back over much of Kansas, producing short-term Moderate AQI impacts. It also notes widespread light smoke from Arizona and New Mexico wildfires during the week and says no PM2.5 NAAQS exceedance was recorded for the period.
Cited authorities: Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Documented An agency or publisher page assesses this cause, without an agency record naming the event or an EPA qualifier on the data.
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.