Rains may bring some reprieve to those suffering from massive blazes in the Pacific Northwest in the next few weeks, but forecasters don’t expect any help for wildfire-plagued California anytime soon.
That’s according to briefing call on Friday morning held by AccuWeather and Plume Labs looking at weather and air quality forecasts for the remainder of this year’s wildfire season.
Residents in the Golden State have been living for weeks with grayish, choking air and widespread ash from North to South, with numerous lives lost and thousands of evacuations, while hundreds of thousands have been on evacuation alerts in Washington and Oregon from numerous wildfires.
The record-breaking fire season has already resulted in unhealthy air quality in the Western U.S., with smoke making it all the way across the country and possibly headed into Europe. Economic losses from the fires are expected to be between $130 billion and $150 billion, according to AccuWeather. Those losses include destroyed property and structures, firefighting costs, and anticipated health issues from the smoke.
“There were some days we had several hundred thousand acres burned in one day,” said David Samuhel, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.