California and Oregon 2020 wildfires blanket several cities in smoke

Image Courtesy of NBC News

Image Courtesy of NBC News

Denny Mathew, Staff Writer

The current climate we face along the West Coast here in America is facing Lightning strikes back in August initiated numerous cities ablaze along the West Coast. As a result, wildfires are burning across millions of acres in California and Oregon.

These fires are the worst in 18 years according to scientists. The smoke of the fires is so large, that they have traveled through the Atlantic Ocean and enveloped the skies of Europe. Scientists from the European Commission’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) found proof of the smoked-up skies in Europe.

The fact the fires are emitting so much pollution that can be detected thousands of miles away reflects “just how devastating they have been in their magnitude and duration”, says Mark Parrington, a CAMS senior scientist.

Data from CAMS also shows the fires are “significantly more intense” than the average for 2003-2019 and are the worst in 18 years.

The states of Oregon, Washington, and California are experiencing some of the unhealthiest air on the planet, according to global air quality rankings. In some parts of Oregon, air quality has been so hazardous that it has gone beyond the scale of the state’s Air Quality Index.

Pollution has hit historic levels in five of the state’s cities – Portland, Eugene, Bend, Medford, and Klamath Falls, officials said this week.

It already estimates that 2020 is the highest year of fire carbon emissions for California in its Global Fire Emissions Database, which goes back to 1997.