air quality alert

Poor air quality and Air Stagnation Alerts are numerous for western Montana counties right now, and are expected to continue through most of Wednesday. How bad is the air quality in some of the areas of concern?

Montana has been surrounded by raging wildfires all summer and now we have plenty of our own to deal with. One of the most challenging aspects of these wildfires is the particulate filled smoke that they produce. It can stay localized in valleys or continuously blow into the state with the jet stream. How can you stay healthy if you're susceptible to breathing issues?

Unhealthy and Very Unhealthy levels of particulates remain in Montana's wildfire smoke soaked air. Every single county in western Montana and southwest Montana continue to be under an Air Quality Alert.

The skies above southwest Montana turned drastically smoky on Tuesday with Bozeman's Air Quality Index rising to "unhealthy" levels in the 150s.

Take your pick. It's all bad. Beaverhead, Big Horn, Broadwater, Carbon, Carter, Cascade, Chouteau, Custer, Deer Lodge, Fallon, Fergus, Gallatin, Glacier, Golden Valley, Granite, Jefferson, Judith Basin, Lake, Lewis and Clark, Liberty, Madison, Meagher, Missoula, Musselshell, Park, Petroleum, Pondera, Powder River, Powell, Ravalli, Rosebud, Silver Bow, Stillwater, Sweet Grass, Teton, Treasure, Toole, Wheatland, and Yellowstone counties.

The heat and the haze continue for the entire state of Montana this week. Air Quality Index numbers certainly fluctuate but at this point we're fluctuating between levels of 'bad'. Where are the hot spots today for poor air quality?

Wildfire smoke has absolutely saturated the state of Montana. Missoula, Butte, Helena and Bozeman all have some of the worst air quality numbers in the entire United States, with some AQI numbers ranking worse than Jakarta, Indonesia or Delhi, India. That's really bad.

As of Thursday morning at 10am, the AQI for Bozeman was 161, which is considered unhealthy and particle pollution that can harm the heart and lungs.

Air quality has been extremely poor for days in Gallatin County and surrounding areas. (Saturday night reached dangerous levels for several hours, by the way.)

It's no secret that air quality has been extremely poor for days in Gallatin County and surrounding areas. (Saturday night reached dangerous levels for several hours, by the way.)

Air quality in Libby and Thompson Falls is poor enough that an Air Quality Alert has been issued and Lincoln County has indoor and outdoor burning restrictions in place.

It's no secret that our valleys have been very smokey with low visibility due to wildfires. It's so bad you can TASTE the smoke!