2024: Idaho's Year in Wildfire

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) responds to the yearly deterioration of air quality due to smoke from wildfires in a variety of ways, including air quality monitoring and forecasting, interagency coordination of outreach to protect public health, compilation of emissions from wildfire sources, flagging of monitoring data for exceptional events demonstrations, and analysis of wildfire trends and events. Highlights from the 2024 wildfire season include the following: Approximately 1 million acres of wildland burned – the most in almost a decade. 188,111 metric tons of PM2.5 pollution were released from Idaho fires. Idaho experienced 63 days with an Air Quality Advisory in place – a 384% increase from 2023. DEQ led a record number of interagency coordination calls and responded to over 35 media inquiries. Over 25,000 people accessed the DEQ Air Idaho app to check Idaho’s air quality. DEQ participated in the national Smoke Ready campaign – creating and sharing social media content that reached thousands of members of the Idaho public.