Fair wind may send wildfire smoke packing

A favorable breeze may push smoke from two fires burning west of Yosemite National Park away from Carson Valley this afternoon, but it won’t cool things down, at all.

The National Weather Service in Reno is forecasting a breeze out of the north, which might offer some relief from the pall that peaked on Sunday morning when air quality plummeted to very unhealthy levels across the Valley, according to fire.airnow.gov sensors.

Four veterans from Carson Valley Senior Living had to go to Carson City for their Dreamflight in an open cockpit biplane that was originally supposed to take off from Minden-Tahoe Airport.

Visibility was down to two miles at the airport on Sunday morning, according to its automated weather system.

On Tuesday, air quality improved into the moderate range.

Smoke from the Oak and Washburn fires, burning about a dozen miles from one another, wafted 100 miles due north into Carson Valley on Saturday night.

Washburn, the older of the blazes, burning in Yosemite’s Mariposa Grove was 87 percent contained as of Tuesday morning. The Grove’s 500 giant sequoias have avoided serious damage from the Washburn Fire.

“Most of these trees are over 2,000 years old and have experienced fire many times throughout their lives,” National Park officials said.

More concerning is the 17,000-acre Oak Fire, which was first reported on Friday afternoon. Firefighters had a line around 16 percent of the fire which burned actively overnight.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection revised the number of structures destroyed in the fire to seven.

More than 2,500 firefighters are working the blaze, mostly in 63 hand crews. They are supported by 17 helicopters, 281 engines and 66 bulldozers.

Fire officials estimate both blazes could be contained by this weekend, according to Tuesday morning’s National Interagency Coordination Center’s situation report.

The north wind won’t do anything to cool off Western Nevada, since it’s being generated by a heatwave in the Northwest where temperatures are expected to run from the mid-90s to the mid-100s.

Forecasters are calling for high temperatures climbing to 98 degrees on Thursday and Friday before a possible cooling trend next week.

There’s a distant possibility of showers or thunderstorms through the weekend.