Community Forums

fatsurf · 08-15-2021, 09:46 AM

Hello All,
We are in Challis Idaho and planning route home to So Cal. I would like to plan a route with the least smoke.
Would like to know where in the west has been the least affected by the smoke.
Leave a short smoke report and location.

Challis Idaho, last 3 days medium smoke with 5 mile visibility.
//Greg

DonavonP · 08-15-2021, 10:21 AM

This might help with your decision: https://fire.airnow.gov/

Looks like the Pacific coast would be the least smoky.

twogypsies · 08-15-2021, 03:41 PM

Smoke depends on the wind direction. Just look on a fire map and drive as far away as you can heading south. There are times that smoke reached to the eastern states this summer. Arizona is smoke free... lots of rain!!

profdan · 08-17-2021, 04:05 AM

Unfortunately, the smoke moves around a lot, from day to day. Very hard to find clear air right now.

Coastal southern Calif is pretty good -- the fires are to the north, and the prevailing ocean breeze is from the southwest. We just got back home after a week in the Sierra, and the air here is a lot better.

traveldawg · 08-17-2021, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatsurf

Hello All,
We are in Challis Idaho and planning route home to So Cal. I would like to plan a route with the least smoke.
Would like to know where in the west has been the least affected by the smoke.
Leave a short smoke report and location.

Challis Idaho, last 3 days medium smoke with 5 mile visibility.
//Greg

We're in the Glacier NP area. Smoke comes and goes. Today it's raining so little smoke. It sort of chocked me up yesterday on a short hike. We came from the Olympic Peninsula where there was no smoke; when we got just east of Seattle it started and hasn't stopped.

Sorry - not much help.

On the humorous side, just drive straight south to I-10, then west to CA and then up the coast...... really.... the smoke seems to be everywhere in the northwest.

This is probably our last mid-summer to autumn trip to the SW and NW for the foreseeable future.... fires, heat, water famine..... we'll try to do spring time early summer trips in the future - it's so pretty (when there isn't any smoke).....