Trip planning with Fires and Smoke

[CAMERONM]

Smoke and fire concerns have increased exponentially. I used to drive up 395 with a bunch of Harrison maps and pick a trailhead where the sky was clear, sometimes driving north a long time. Fires happened, and you danced around them. Then last year pretty much all of the Sierra went into lockdown.

I have several times enjoyed a beautiful clear morning only to have the smoke move in so fast and thick in one hour that I was concerned that a new fire was just over the hill, only to discover that it was actually 100 miles away. I have suffered multiple days on trails with horrible headaches and of course very ugly yellow smoky skies. I once walked off the PCT on the advice of rangers who warned that there were no easy escape routes where I was headed. I have been carrying a N95 mask for years.

I know that it is a roulette situation that is highly dependent on unpredictable wind. I look at various websites and try to be smart about where and when I go, but even two weeks ago I gambled and failed; the smoke around Tahoe was beyond unbearable. Seven hours is a long drive for nothing.

My question is, how do others deal with it? What information sources do you look to, what is your general approach for planning trips?

[c9h13no3]

I've been chatting about it here. But the general blueprint:

- Pick a destination as late as possible.
- Keep the trip short. Smoke forecasts are usually only good for 2-3 days.
- Consult various smoke forecasts.
- Pack an N95 mask.
- The farther away from the fires, the better. Currently SoCal is better.

I've been day hiking & climbing around Tahoe the past month. Sometimes the afternoon Washoe Zephyr is enough to push the air quality to tolerable when it was unhealthy in the AM.

[mkbgdns]

a very minor item, but an N95 with an exhalation valve (doesn't comply w covid mask mandates, doesn't protect others from your exhaled viral particles) is noticeably more comfortable to wear over a matter of hours. of course, the best plan is avoid the smoke entirely...

[SSSdave]

As a serious landscape photographer over decades, my threshold for acceptable air clarity, smoke, and foul weather is significantly lower than others. Mildly hazy skies or wind others may have little issue with can be deal breakers for this person. Given the extra heavy pack weight I carry, I greatly dislike expending the strenuous efforts to reach prime areas only to experience useless air clarity or winds, especially when years ago average air clarity was so much better. Accordingly have studied weather and been quick in this Internet era to utilize new sources of information to understand what is happening. Such has been hugely beneficial to my body of work.

That noted it is still always a gamble driving several hours from the SFBA east to our mountains. In 2016, a nearby wildfire began the same day we reached Edison Reservoir to start a 9-day backpack. On other trips new wildfires far away blew in smoke days later and during others forecasts days out did not hold up. So yeah its always a gamble however one can get "burned" less with knowledge.

There don't seem to be any books about northern California weather in part because technical meteorology is advancing so rapidly, especially regarding large scale atmospheric movement that is used in global weather modeling. First suggestion would be to more thoroughly understand how to use windy.com including looking at winds at different altitudes. Second would be to frequently read NWS technical forecasts.

https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/forecast.php

My third suggestion would be to study online general meteorology pages of which there are numbers if one looks:

https://www.weather.gov/learning

PS...Mask valve issues as I've been endlessly addressing on the web since May 2020 are easily fixed by taping over the valves.

[frozenintime]

what are the forums experiences with smoke forecasts? accurate? a toss up?

i’m thinking of windy specifically, since it goes a couple days out and is so easy to use.

[CAMERONM]

Thanks for the ref of the other thread, c9h13no3, don't know why I missed it.

Of course there is getting out pre and post-fire season. Paul and I schemed to get out in this May, but the post-hole situation was still too risky. We did however pull off a trip in late October last year. September used to be my favorite month, no mosquitos, cooler weather, less people, but now with the drought, finding water becomes an issue we normally don't worry about much in the Sierra. With climate change, there are more moving parts to consider-

[c9h13no3]

what are the forums experiences with smoke forecasts? accurate? a toss up?

i’m thinking of windy specifically, since it goes a couple days out and is so easy to use.

Windy is still has a lot of uncertainty (they all do). Today is a great example, they had the wind event clearing the smoke out of Tahoe today. Incline Village & Tahoe City still at 300+ AQI, the wind is just taking a while to clear out the smoke for some reason.

The smoke forecasts are way less reliable than a forecast for rain or other types of weather. I still consult 2-3 smoke forecasts, and if they all show a big enough window, I try to capitalize. But you still need to bring the N95 and be prepared for the forecast to be wrong. I think the EPA one is most accurate, but it only goes 24 hrs out, and "most accurate" still isn't great.

So yeah, the night before I drive, if both forecasts show clear air the next day, I've been going on day hikes. A backpack more than 2-3 days seems really risky.

[frozenintime]

yeah, that's about what i figured, and has been my experience so far: "smoke forecasting" is a relatively new and unsteady thing, albeit one that we will unfortunately be relying on a lot more moving forward.

i have a 4-5 day trip over lamarck col permitted for thursday. my magic 8 ball is not feeling particularly lucky at the moment!

concerning the specific tahoe forecast for today, i don't know if we can totally blame the smoke model. the nascent caldor fire absolutely exploded overnight, which a forecast likely couldn't predict.

[CAMERONM]

N95 with an exhalation valve (doesn't comply w covid mask mandates, doesn't protect others from your exhaled viral particles) is noticeably more comfortable to wear

I have always hated how my 3M front-vented N95 smashes up when packed. I just found this foldable vented mask at Home Depot. I think I am going to explore patching in another vent, and also change the around-the-head loops to over-the-ear ones. Yes, I don't like wearing these things, but when the smoke is really bad, I will do anything for some nausea relief.

Screen Shot 2021-08-17 at 10.36.49 PM.png

[c9h13no3]

i have a 4-5 day trip over lamarck col permitted for thursday. my magic 8 ball is not feeling particularly lucky at the moment!

If you've already got permits, and you don't have health or SSSDave reasons for hating smoke, I'd probably just send it. I might modify my itinerary a bit (base camp 15 miles in, so you can quickly bail in a day?), but that's a pretty sweet permit to just punt.