Montana Close to Record for Bad Air Quality

Air quality has been a major problem in western Montana this summer, and many are wondering if this is the worst summer for breathing ever recorded. According to Meteorologist Chris Gibson, it isn’t quite the worst, but it is pretty close.

"Looking at things, in 2012 was the last time we had really bad air quality from wildfire smoke for weeks at a time," Gibson said. "So that year, in late August, the serious air quality impact started and lasted about a month. Maybe a month and a half. This year we started earlier. Pretty much the whole month of August has been very smoky."

With smoke getting a head-start this year, Gibson was asked if he thought the record would be broken.

"Yeah, I believe it will," Gibson said. "There's still another month of warm, dry weather potentially. We should see a pattern change next week with some shower activity. That will help, but there's so much fire out there in the woods that it's going to continue to smolder and produce smoke at times for the next few weeks."

2012 saw 29 days of poor air quality, which is the record to beat. 2015 is already well on its way to claiming the title.