Did You Know Metro Denver Has An Indoor Wood Burning Restriction Today?
DENVER (CBS4) - If you live below 7,000 feet anywhere in the 7-county Denver metro area you're asked to not use your wood burning fireplace until at least 4 p.m. Friday afternoon. That request could be extended into Saturday, depending on how particulate levels may or may not change.
The 7-county Denver metro area includes the following...
- Denver County
- Boulder County
- Broomfield County
- Douglas County
- Jefferson County
- Western Adams County
- Western Arapahoe County
RELATED: Thick Haze Hanging Over Denver Prompts Air Quality Alert For I-25 Urban Corridor
The geography of the Front Range lends itself to problems with air quality and we saw a thick haze form over the city early Friday morning. While there are many sources for human-caused pollution, including vehicles and factory smoke, during the cold season, smoke from wood burning fireplaces is a big source of the problem on a day like Friday, when the atmosphere was very still and a strong temperature inversion was in place.
A temperature inversion means the air at the ground is colder than the air immediately above it, as seen in the temperature data on the graph above, which is from the weather balloon released early Friday in Denver.
That warm layer acts like a lid in the atmosphere and traps the air below it. So imagine if several thousand homes are burning wood at the same time, all of that smoke gets trapped below the inversion, which contributes to the problem we saw early Friday with a thick haze.
There are exceptions to the no burning rule, including if your only source of heat is a wood burning device. Click here to learn more from the CDPHE. If you want to learn more about the air pollution advisory program operated by the CDPHE click here.
