Residents of Las Vegas waking up today on Wednesday, September 11 are wondering why the city looks like it’s on fire. The skies are choked with smoke and ash, and the air quality is so poor that Clark County has issued a smoke alert on Wednesday morning, asking seniors, children, and anyone with a respiratory or heart disease to stay indoors until further notice. The only silver lining is that we know the causes behind the smoke blanketing Las Vegas and, weather permitting, when the smoke might clear.
Heavy smoke in Las Vegas is due to multiple wildfires
The smoke throughout Las Vegas is caused by more than several wildfires, three in California and one in Nevada.
The three wildfires in California, as noted by KTNV in Las Vegas, are the Bridge Fire and Line Fire, both of which are northwest of Riverside, and another wildfire northwest of Murrieta in the Santa Ana Mountains called the Airport Fire.
Meanwhile, the wildfire in Nevada is the Davis Fire that’s burning south of Reno. A 34-person team of firefighters from the Las Vegas area has been deployed to the area, per KSNV, to assist in the effort to help in fighting this fire. The U.S. Forest Service said that the Davis Fire, which started on September 7 in Davis Creek Regional Park, has burned about 5,600 acres as of Tuesday night and has only reached 31% containment.
As a result of the heavy smoke, the FAA announced that there may be delays from flights flying into Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
Forecasts suggest that winds coming from the southwest might be coming on Thursday and Friday, causing the plume of smoke to head toward Southern Nevada instead. A forecaster from 8newsnow stated that “a wind shift later this week should help push [the smoke] back out.”
Earlier in September, a woman was arrested for “intentionally” setting wildfires in Greece.
