Well, the Treasure Valley's break from the wildfire smoke lasted exactly 11 days, and then yesterday, smoke came pouring back in, this time from the opposite direction, the northwest. Air quality broke out of the "good" category into the "moderate" range yesterday, and that's where it remains this morning. "There are a whole bunch of fires," said Mike Toole, regional airshed coordinator for the Idaho DEQ. "There are three wildfires up kind of by McCall. And then Washington over the weekend got a thunderstorm and there's a bunch of fires up in Washington now. So with the winds coming out of the northwest, it was blowing all that smoke toward us."

Things could improve a bit today. "We have some smoke in the valley now," Toole said. "'Based on what we're seeing ... this afternoon after the morning inversion breaks, we'll hopefully get some more clearing." Winds have switched to a southeasterly direction, he noted.

"The forecast for tomorrow looks like we're still going to have the southeasterly wind component, so tomorrow it looks like it clears up fairly good. But Saturday switches back to northwesterly wind," Toole said. "That could push the smoke right back into us." He added, "We did have a nice couple-week break, but there's a lot of new fires going on."