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Other Documented

2024-03-16 Tulsa, OK another explicitly identified source episode

March 16, 2024

Daily PM2.5 peaked at 39.4 µg/m³ near Tulsa across 1 covered metro home to 1.1 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 ≈ 1.4 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.

Why we think this happened

The basis for “Other”

KDHE attributes the Tulsa-metro exceedance as likely influenced by wildland fires within the Flint Hills but does not distinguish prescribed fire from wildfire and notes other contributors. The supported broad cause therefore remains other.

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 · May 7, 2024 official

Flint Hills Wildland Fire Update: 2024 Summary

KDHE lists a March 16 preliminary PM2.5 exceedance of 39 ug/m3 at Glenpool in the Tulsa metro and assesses the listed exceedances as likely influenced by wildland fires within the Flint Hills. It cautions that regional pollution, other sources, and smoke from fires beyond the Flint Hills also likely contributed, and its acreage analysis does not distinguish prescribed fire from wildfire.

See every retained source and limitation ↓

Evidence path

From source to city

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.

Open the evidence ledger ↓
  1. 1

    Source or mechanism

    Other

    KDHE lists a March 16 preliminary PM2.5 exceedance of 39 ug/m3 at Glenpool in the Tulsa metro and assesses the listed exceedances as likely influenced by wildland fires within the Flint Hills. It cautions that regional pollution, other sources, and…

    View supporting source ↗
    Documented
  2. 2

    Air-mass movement

    The transport path has not been reconstructed

    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.

    Research gap
  3. 3

    Local response

    39.4 µg/m³ near Tulsa

    EPA monitors recorded the event across 1 metro. The peak daily concentration is roughly 1.8 cigarette-equivalents at the outdoor daily rate.

    Inspect the pollutant and weather signals ↓
    Documented

Event autopsy

What the instruments saw

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.

Observed context · not attribution

Tulsa, OK

Monitor comparison window 2024-03-13 to 2024-03-19 · PM2.5 target: Glenpool

6 pollutant signals
Fine-particle pulse 37.7 µg/m³

246% above nearby days

Air movement 1.09 kt

82% lower than surrounding days

PM10 32 µg/m³

39% higher than surrounding days

Pollution fingerprint

Metro-wide median of reporting monitors
PM2.5 37.7 µg/m³

246% higher than surrounding days

Before8.08 µg/m³ Event37.7 µg/m³ After13.6 µg/m³
2 monitors · 1 HOUR
PM10 32 µg/m³

39% higher than surrounding days

Before23 µg/m³ Event32 µg/m³ After23 µg/m³
1 monitor · 24-HR BLK AVG
Carbon monoxide 0.238 ppm

61% higher than surrounding days

Before0.142 ppm Event0.238 ppm After0.148 ppm
1 monitor · 1 HOUR
Nitrogen dioxide 7.73 ppb

27% higher than surrounding days

Before4.90 ppb Event7.73 ppb After6.63 ppb
1 monitor · 1 HOUR
Sulfur dioxide 0.083 ppb

Adjacent observations available

Before0 ppb Event0.083 ppb After0.042 ppb
3 monitors · 1 HOUR
Ozone 0.045 ppm

16% higher than surrounding days

Before0.037 ppm Event0.045 ppm After0.042 ppm
5 monitors · 8-HR RUN AVG BEGIN HOUR

Atmospheric conditions

Nearby EPA weather observations
Humidity 53.9 %

About the same as surrounding days

Temperature 56.3 °F

About the same as surrounding days

Wind 1.09 kt

82% 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.

Measured daily PM2.5 at EPA monitors, as cigarette-equivalents
EPA monitors sit in metro areas, so the colour clusters there. Land between and beyond them is unmeasured, not clean: this map shows where IAQng has readings, not the extent of the smoke.
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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.

Affected metros

MetroPeak PM2.5Cigarettes, whole eventPeak dayAll-time standing
Tulsa, OK 39.4 µg/m³ 1.8 Mar 16, 2024 #9 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

What supports this account

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.

Agency and publisher pages 1

  • Flint Hills Wildland Fire Update: 2024 Summary

    Kansas Department of Health and Environment · May 7, 2024 official government

    KDHE lists a March 16 preliminary PM2.5 exceedance of 39 ug/m3 at Glenpool in the Tulsa metro and assesses the listed exceedances as likely influenced by wildland fires within the Flint Hills. It cautions that regional pollution, other sources, and smoke from fires beyond the Flint Hills also likely contributed, and its acreage analysis does not distinguish prescribed fire from wildfire.

Cited authorities: Kansas Department of Health and Environment

What remains uncertain

Status and provenance

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.