Smoke from Western wildfires reaches East Coast

By KVAL News Published: Aug 20, 2012 at 11:13 AM PDT
Smoke from Western wildfires reaches East Coast
Ray Hoff superimposed an arrow showing the flow of Western wildfire smoke across the U.S. and off the East Coast in this image posted on the "smog blog" maintained by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Atmospheric Lidar Group.

EUGENE, Ore. - Cooler, moister air helped put a damper on Western wildfires that had put up a plume of smoke that reached the East Coast over the weekend.

Smoke from western wildfires drifted east across the southern half of the United States and up and off the Eastern seabord, according to the Atmospheric Lidar Group University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

But the same weather that slowed the smoke crossing the content gave firefighters a leg up on fires burning in Oregon.

"Slightly cooler temperatures and higher relative humidity continued Sunday which enabled firefighters to make good progress on building and holding containment lines," fire managers on the Butte Fire east of Roseburg reported Monday morning.

That's good, because firefighters have their hands full across Oregon.

The massive Holloway Fire on the Oregon-Nevada border is mostly contained, with crews in both states working to rehabilitate the lands burned by the fire. NASA satellites captured images of the burn scar from the 720-square-mile fire.

The 146-square-mile Barry Point fire and the smaller Fort Complex fires on the Oregon-California border are both less than 50 percent contained.

The Buckhead Complex of fires is 50 percent contained even as new fires crop up on the Willamette National Forest near Oakridge, Ore.

The fires burning in Oregon were all sparked by lightning with the exception of the Ice Cave fire southeast of Bend. Discovered Friday, the human-caused fire is now 50 percent contained after burning 120 acres.