Wildfire smoke Possible
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 31.7 µg/m³ near Deltona across 1 covered metro home to 739,516 people. 1 metro placed a top-ten day in their record.
Why we think this happened
Daytona airport directly observed smoke while the local NWS office documented northern-county smoke and identified ongoing or new fires as the source under investigation. The fire identity was not recovered.
Possible This is a transparent hypothesis supported by limited evidence or an explicit inference, not a definitive attribution.
NOAA/NWS surface observations via Iowa Environmental Mesonet · Jun 12, 2001 hypothesis
DAYTONA BEACH RGNL, 3 km from the PM2.5 target monitor, reported the official present-weather code FU (smoke) during 3 observed hours inside the catalog event window.
National Weather Service Melbourne via Iowa Environmental Mesonet · Jun 12, 2001 hypothesis
NWS Melbourne had reported smoke across its northern counties and, during the event window, explicitly investigated visibility reductions from smoke and fog associated with ongoing fires or new lightning starts.
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
The catalog has a grouping hypothesis, but no retained source directly establishes the proposed cause.
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 1.4 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 “Wildfire smoke” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL
Monitor comparison window 2001-06-09 to 2001-06-15 · PM2.5 target: DAYTONA BLIND SERVICES
93% above nearby days
94% higher than surrounding days
93% higher than surrounding days
94% higher than 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL | 31.7 µg/m³ | 1.4 | Jun 12, 2001 | #8 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.
NOAA/NWS surface observations via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
DAYTONA BEACH RGNL, 3 km from the PM2.5 target monitor, reported the official present-weather code FU (smoke) during 3 observed hours inside the catalog event window.
This source supports a possible mechanism or occurrence; it does not establish the cause by itself.
The surface code establishes smoke at the nearby airport; it does not identify whether the source was a wildfire, prescribed burn, agricultural fire, or another local fire.
National Weather Service Melbourne via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
NWS Melbourne had reported smoke across its northern counties and, during the event window, explicitly investigated visibility reductions from smoke and fog associated with ongoing fires or new lightning starts.
This source supports a possible mechanism or occurrence; it does not establish the cause by itself.
The discussion treats active fires as the suspected source but does not name one or issue a definitive attribution.
Possible This is a transparent hypothesis supported by limited evidence or an explicit inference, not a definitive attribution.
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.