A smoke forecaster says there is a possibility that wildfire smoke from northeast B.C. will arrive on Vancouver Island on Friday, but it won’t be dense enough to come with air quality impacts.
The fire smoke map by BlueSky Canada shows that by 2 p.m. wildfire smoke from the Parker Lake wildfire near Fort Nelson is expected to cover the whole Island.
However, the map shows the ground level concentration is expected to be between 1-10 micrograms per meter cubed, which is the lowest reading for wildfire smoke.
“It’s not a lot of smoke,” Jalena Bennett, the weather forecast research team correspondent and smoke information specialist with BlueSky Canada, told CHEK News in a Zoom interview.
“It’ll probably be a very low smoke event, if there’s even any smoke that hits Vancouver Island at all. Our smoke forecast is very good at predicting the general motion of smoke and approximate concentrations but sometimes we get it a little bit wrong.”
“Looking at the satellite imagery right now, all the smoke I see by Vancouver Island is off the coast and I don’t actually see any hitting Vancouver Island, but also there’s a lot of clouds right now so it can be hard to tell.”
The BC Air Quality Health Index shows all stations on Vancouver Island currently sitting at a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10+, with that meaning it is safe to enjoy your usual activities.
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Laura Brougham
