The Hazy Days Of Summer Smoke From Canadian Fires Expected To Hang Over The Region Through Friday

Canadian wildfires spread a haze of smoke through the Inland Northwest for the second straight day Wednesday.

With a ridge of high pressure bringing in a north wind, the smoke is expected to remain over the region at least through Friday, the National Weather Service said Wednesday.

Wildfires have burned thousands of acres across Canada, including 1,350 square miles in Alberta, 536 square miles in the Yukon Territory, 88 square miles in British Columbia and 1,642 square miles in the Northwest Territories.

“It is being carried through the interior,” said Wendy Stewart, a fire information officer for the British Columbia Forest Service.

The smoky haze that blanketed Spokane also clung to the mountains around Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene, finding its way down Lake Pend Oreille toward Hope.

“It is really hanging over the lake. I can’t even see the water from my window,” said Dorothy Long who lives above Lake Pend Oreille. “It’s just kind of stuck here.”

The U.S. Forest Service ranger station in Sandpoint had a flurry of calls the first day the smoke rolled in.

Several asthma sufferers called to complain about health problems and wanted to make sure it wasn’t a Forest Service burn causing the problem, said spokesman Judy York.

“Most just want to know where it’s coming from,” York said, adding one woman with asthma came into her office with puffy, watery eyes. “She wasn’t very happy.”

Spokane air quality officials rated the air as only moderately healthy on Wednesday.

But that designation is misleading, said Eric Skelton, Spokane Air Pollution Control Authority director.

New studies show the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s current air quality standards don’t adequately protect human health, Skelton said.

“What we call ‘moderate’ today we may call ‘serious’ two years from now,” Skelton said.

That’s when the EPA is expected to tighten its standard for dust particles measuring 10 microns in diameter, called PM-10, and impose a new standard for even smaller particles, PM-2.5.

There is currently no public health standard for the tiniest particles detected in Spokane’s air this week, Skelton said.

The American Lung Association has sued EPA to force the agency to tighten the standards.

The EPA admits its current standard for the particles may not be nearly tough enough and plans to release new guidelines by January 1997.

Several recent studies have linked the small dust particles to serious respiratory problems, correlating an increase in pollution levels with hospital admissions for asthma and other problems.

In addition, a Harvard University study released this week in the American Journal of Epidemiology concludes that up to 3 percent of all admissions for heart ailments, including chest pains, heart attacks, heart failure and death, may be caused by air pollution.

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The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Kevin Keating and Karen Dorn Steele Staff writers The Associated Press contributed to this report.