Wildfire, Smoke, Air Quality Resources

[jvangeld]

WTA just added a wildfire layer and AQI forecast layer to their Hike Finder map. I don't know where they are sourcing the data from, but it sure is handy to have the hiking information with the smoke information. You can read the announcement at their website.

[squidvicious]

Can I get some help understanding settings for AQI for smoke? Specifically conversion settings on the purple air sourced readings.

My vague understanding was the purple air sensors are kind of calibrated for an "average" pollutant in a way that doesn't necessarily do a great job of looking for smoke specifically, but applying a conversion should bring it pretty closely in line with the official government sensors. So I think the settings would be

• US EPA PM2.5 AQI
• US EPA conversion
• 1 hour average (just to match the AirNow interval)

This looks like what the watch duty app uses on their AQI layer, so so far so good.

But the thing is, I understood that the problem with the purple air sensors was that they reported overly high unconverted numbers when smoke was particularly bad. Right now looking at a purple air sensor in Govt Camp, I get 478 with the above settings, 455 when I remove the conversion, and 132 on an official sensor at Multorpor. Which is not what I expected and has me questioning if I understand any of this at all.

Explain it to me like I'm 5?

[idoru]

Might it be handy to pin this thread towards the top of the forum? Seems like a great resource to keep readily accessible.

[Bosterson]

Done.