Wildfire smoke Likely
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 36.7 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
Two wildfires burned more than 200 acres in Tiger Bay State Forest immediately west of Daytona on February 2, and contemporaneous reporting on February 3 says smoke from the burning forest was visible from Daytona-area communities. The same-day, same-place smoke occurrence makes wildfire smoke the likely cause of the metro PM2.5 event.
Likely Applicable reporting or a supported inference makes this the best current causal explanation.
Daytona Beach News-Journal via Yahoo News · Feb 3, 2026 hypothesis
The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that two Tiger Bay State Forest wildfires burned more than 200 acres just west of Daytona and that smoke from the burning forest was visible from nearby communities on February 3.
Inference, not direct attribution
: This inference is recorded in the catalog methodology.
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
. This inference is recorded in the catalog methodology.
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 1.7 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 2026-01-31 to 2026-02-06 · PM2.5 target: DAYTONA BLIND SERVICES
358% above nearby days
200% higher than surrounding days
358% higher than surrounding days
200% 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 | 36.7 µg/m³ | 1.7 | Feb 3, 2026 | #6 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.
Daytona Beach News-Journal via Yahoo News
The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that two Tiger Bay State Forest wildfires burned more than 200 acres just west of Daytona and that smoke from the burning forest was visible from nearby communities on February 3.
This source supports a possible mechanism or occurrence; it does not establish the cause by itself.
The article documents the fire and local smoke but does not perform a formal monitor-attribution analysis.
Likely Applicable reporting or a supported inference makes this the best current causal explanation.
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.