Poor air quality from Northern California fires prompts Sonoma County health advisories, closures

Air quality across portions of the North Bay reached dismal levels Wednesday, prompting multiple local health advisories.

Smoke was visible in portions of the North Bay due to wind gusts, which reached up to 50 mph in higher elevations overnight, said Rick Canepa, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Monterey office.

The North Bay and the Sacramento Valley are directly in the path of air flowing from fires in Oregon and Northern California, including the 4,616-acre Deep Fire in Trinity County.

The smoke is expected to linger until about 6 p.m. Thursday, said Dalton Behringer, another weather service meteorologist.

The haziness will then be cleared by onshore winds Thursday night before returning Friday night into Saturday, leaving a small smoke-free window Friday morning.

See a map of air quality below:

“Since the weather systems are arriving from that direction we will have to expect at least some smoke continuing after today,” he said.

The air quality index is at a moderate level for most of the North Bay, according to AirNow. At this stage, when the air quality ranges from 51 to 100, the air is acceptable but there may be some risk for people who sensitive to pollutants. This is the level just above “good” on the index.

Portions of northern Sonoma County, most of Mendocino and Lake counties and the edge of Napa County are facing air deemed “unhealthy” and “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” As of about noon, Cloverdale has an air quality index of 155, about 105 above healthy levels.

At these levels, some residents could experience health effects.

Sonoma County issued a health advisory Wednesday afternoon, urging residents to “limit outdoor activity due to the poor air quality caused by wildfire events throughout Northern California.”

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued an air quality advisory for wildfire smoke through Thursday. The organization also announced a Spare the Air Alert for smog Wednesday.

Several closures have been announced in response to conditions.

Area libraries closed Wednesday, including the Cloverdale, Healdsburg, History and Genealogy, Northwest, Petaluma, Rincon Valley, Rohnert Park-Cotati, Roseland, Sebastopol and Windsor branches of the Sonoma County Library system.

The swimming area for Healdsburg Veterans Memorial Beach and boat rentals, water park and swimming lagoon were closed Wednesday due to smoky conditions. The other portions of the two parks are open, said Sonoma County spokesperson Matt Brown.

Campfire bans are in place at Stillwater Cove and Gualala Point Regional Park campgrounds.

Other parks may be impacted by the Spare the Air Alert. Residents can check a park's status online at SoCoParks.org/Find-A-Park.

Local Sutter Health, Providence and Kaiser Permanente hospitals have not seen higher cases of patients with breathing problems due to smoke, according to respective spokespeople.

Dr. Jennifer Fresco, chief of the pulmonary and critical care department at Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa, said residents should limit exposure to the smoke, by staying indoors as much as possible, closing windows, putting air conditioners into recirculation mode and limiting physical activity outdoors.

“If you’re exercising, you are actually pulling more air in and out of your lungs with every breath and taking deeper breaths,” she said. “So just keep your strenuously activity to a minimum outdoors.”

She also recommended wearing N-95 masks, which are meant to filter out hazardous particulates compared to traditional masks.

Some healthy residents who spend little time outside may not notice much of a difference Wednesday, Fresco said. However, more vulnerable populations — people who are young, old, pregnant or have lung disease — may experience side-effects, such as coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, watery eyes or nose.

Some individuals with lung disease may see increased use of inhalers or may seek steroid prescriptions to help calm the lungs.

Breathing in wildfire smoke for too long can also trigger long-term health effects, such as worsening asthma, bronchitis or lung disease.

Fresco encouraged residents to keep an eye on current air quality levels, because they fluctuate often, depending how the wind blows.

The worst of the red flag conditions, though, were over by Wednesday morning, Canepa said.

The red flag warning issued by the weather service Tuesday for Shasta County south through the North Bay’s interior mountains and Sacramento County will expire about 8 p.m. Wednesday.

The warning was prompted by a low relative humidity and low expected levels of humidity increase overnight coupled with winds of about 15 to 20 mph.

Temperatures are also expected to peak in the 90s for North Bay interior valleys Wednesday, with Santa Rosa reaching 95 degrees.

Canepa said though residents will likely not feel a huge change in relative humidity, which is expected to stay around 30%, the northerly offshore winds are expected to slowly decrease throughout Wednesday.

Winds are expected to pick up again to about 15 to 25 mph Thursday night into Friday. However, they will be damp, onshore winds and are expected to slow just after midnight.

You can reach Staff Writer Madison Smalstig at madison.smalstig@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @madi.smals.