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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Sky hazy from field, forest fires


Hazy skies hang over Coeur d'Alene while instructor Jon Totten, center, leads his beginning white-water kayak class through maneuvers on Lake Coeur d'Alene on Thursday afternoon at North Idaho College beach. Skies have been tinged with brown from a combination of agricultural burning and forest fires. 
 (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
Betsy Z. Russell Staff writer

Skies got smoky in Coeur d’Alene on Thursday as field burning on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation combined with a small forest fire in southwestern Spokane County to fill the area with smoke.

Air quality was briefly listed as moderate when one-hour concentrations for small-particle pollution rose to about 31 micrograms per cubic meter of air around noon, but improved within a few hours when particle concentrations fell to single digits. No air-quality alerts were issued.

“You can smell it out there, but it’s funny, our monitors aren’t really picking it up,” said Scott Honodel, air quality analyst with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality in Coeur d’Alene.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe, which regulates burning by farmers on the reservation, had approved the burning, said spokesman Quanah Spencer, but he had no figures on how many acres were burned.

The tribe notified the state Department of Agriculture that it could burn up to 2,700 acres in Kootenai and Benewah counties on Thursday, but as of late afternoon, less than that had been burned, the department reported.

Patti Gora of Sandpoint-based Safe Air For Everyone said her group’s members with respiratory problems have struggled with smoke for several days.

“They’re trying to burn much more acreage in a day than certainly what we think is reasonable or safe,” Gora said.

Field burning on the Rathdrum Prairie ended for the season Wednesday.

A wildfire that began Tuesday in southwestern Spokane County near Williams Lake has burned 2,100 acres and is 80 percent contained, said Ron Edgar, chief of technical services for the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority.