Wildfire smoke Officially verified
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 36 µg/m³ near Palm Bay across 1 covered metro home to 658,447 people. 1 metro placed a top-ten day in their record.
Why we think this happened
An exact-date NWS discussion directly attributes Melbourne-area visibility obstruction to smoke near smoldering fires; the nearby airport independently recorded smoke for 12 hours.
Officially verified A directly applicable government determination or qualified scientific attribution product identifies this cause.
National Weather Service Melbourne via Iowa Environmental Mesonet · May 23, 2006 official
NWS Melbourne reported smoke and haze causing surface visibility obstruction between Titusville and Melbourne after earlier forecasting localized smoke near smoldering fires.
National Interagency Coordination Center · May 23, 2006 hypothesis
NIFC listed the 833-acre Possum Camp Fire near Edgewater as active on May 23, within the east-central Florida corridor discussed by NWS.
NOAA/NWS surface observations via Iowa Environmental Mesonet · May 23, 2006 hypothesis
MELBOURNE REGIONAL, 5.7 km from the PM2.5 target monitor, reported the official present-weather code FU (smoke) during 12 observed hours inside the catalog event window.
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
NWS Melbourne reported smoke and haze causing surface visibility obstruction between Titusville and Melbourne after earlier forecasting localized smoke near smoldering fires.
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 “Wildfire smoke” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL
Monitor comparison window 2006-05-20 to 2006-05-26 · PM2.5 target: Melbourne
29% above nearby days
29% 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.
Views from the selected metro
Select a metro on the map to see nearby cameras. Where an operator archive reaches the event, drag the divider to compare two moments, adjust either date and time, or play the available event-day frames. Camera imagery is visual context, not an air-quality measurement or proof of smoke.
No useful public camera views are currently available within 80 km of this metro.
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL | 36 µg/m³ | 1.6 | May 23, 2006 | #3 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.
National Weather Service Melbourne via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
NWS Melbourne reported smoke and haze causing surface visibility obstruction between Titusville and Melbourne after earlier forecasting localized smoke near smoldering fires.
An official source supports the attributed cause for the stated place and dates.
The discussion attributes the smoke to smoldering fires but does not name a single responsible incident.
NOAA/NWS surface observations via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
MELBOURNE REGIONAL, 5.7 km from the PM2.5 target monitor, reported the official present-weather code FU (smoke) during 12 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 Interagency Coordination Center
NIFC listed the 833-acre Possum Camp Fire near Edgewater as active on May 23, within the east-central Florida corridor discussed by NWS.
This source supports a possible mechanism or occurrence; it does not establish the cause by itself.
The NIFC record establishes a plausible nearby contributor; it does not link that named fire to the Melbourne monitor or establish it as the only source.
Officially verified A directly applicable government determination or qualified scientific attribution product identifies this cause.
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.