The haze which settled over the Nicola Valley and Kamloops last Friday will likely be visible until the end of this week.
Kamloops fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek said the haze, which settled over the area this past weekend, is a mix of smoke from wildfires in the U.S. and Russia.
“A lot of it is from the Colorado wildfires that have been burning for quite some time.
“But, believe it or not, a big chunk of it, based on the weather models we’re looking at, is from Siberia,” he said.
“There’s some pretty significant fires going on over there and it looks like the smoke and haze got caught in a jet stream that came over the Pacific and settled right down in some of our valleys.”
The haze is expected to hang around until Friday, Skrepnek said, but that will depend somewhat on weather conditions.
Whether the fires continue to burn won’t affect air quality, however.
“This haze could be from burning that happened a week ago and it’s just taken its time to get here,” Skrepnek said.
Skrepnek said he’s heard reports the smoke has also moved into Alberta.
Skrepnek said the heavier concentrations of haze and smoke seen over the weekend were probably the result of a warm mass of air that formed over top of the smoke, trapping it in the city’s valley bottoms.
With files from Kamloops This Week.
