Air quality alert issued as wildfire smoke rolls back into SLO County
The sky in San Luis Obispo County was hazy with smoke Thursday morning, once again prompting the county Air Pollution Control District to issue an air quality alert.
The alert will be in effect through the weekend due to increased smoke in the area from fires throughout California, according to the APCD.
Most of San Luis Obispo County was considered to have moderate air quality Thursday morning. However, in the northeast area of the county, quality was unhealthy for sensitive groups, according to the APCD.
The Nipomo and Nipomo Mesa area also had elevated rates of small particulate matter compared to the rest of the county Thursday.
The Dolan Fire near Big Sur has been burning for more than a month and was 90% contained as of Thursday.
A “green island” within the fire perimeter began burning Tuesday and has grown to 500 acres in the southern region of the fire, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The Forest Service reported a plume of smoke could be seen coming from the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road area.
A Red Flag warning was issued in the Dolan Fire area due to high winds and triple-digit heat across the Central Coast.
According to PG&E meteorologist John Lindsey, both San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles broke temperature records on Wednesday.
In San Luis Obispo, temperatures reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit at Cal Poly and 106 degrees at San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. Paso Robles Municipal Airport saw a high of 106 degrees.
The heat wave was expected to continue Thursday, according to Lindsey.
“Nobody is escaping triple-digit temperatures today, not even the beaches,” Lindsey tweeted Thursday.
According to the meteorologist, offshore winds prevented cooler temperatures Thursday, but northwestern winds were expected to bring cooler weather in the late afternoon.
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 2:36 PM.
