Smoke forecast
Where the smoke over Spokane was, and where the model sends it next. Scrub back 12 hours or forward 48. Every hour shown is a model estimate, not a measurement.
The scale is anchored to visibility, because that is the one reading you can take yourself without trusting a model. Distances are approximate.
Mount Spokane stands clean to the northeast, about twenty-five miles out, and the Selkirks behind it hold their layers.
Mount Spokane has gone flat and blue, and the ridgelines north of the valley are losing their edges.
The hills above the valley reduce to silhouettes. Five Mile Prairie, about five miles north, is the furthest thing with any texture left.
From the South Hill the downtown towers hold about two miles below, while the far side of the valley fades out.
Downtown goes soft from the South Hill. From Riverfront Park you lose the ridge that frames the whole city.
Spokane sits downwind of nearly everything that burns in the interior Northwest. Smoke arrives from central and eastern Washington, the Idaho panhandle, western Montana, and interior British Columbia, and the Columbia Basin funnels it into the valley on westerly and southwesterly flow. British Columbia is the one people underestimate: a bad BC season puts smoke over Spokane repeatedly without a single fire burning in Washington.
The 2015 and 2020 seasons both produced multi-week stretches of degraded air, and Spokane has spent parts of recent summers with the worst measured air quality in the United States.
The verdict at the top of this page answers that for Spokane specifically. Spokane is worth checking more often than most cities on this site, because it sits downwind of nearly everything that burns in the interior Northwest. Four separate source regions feed it, so the odds that at least one is active in August are high. Everything shown is a model estimate rather than a measurement at your address.
That is the headline answer above: the clear time, the first stretch of at least six straight hours below the Hazy threshold. The Columbia Basin is the complication. It funnels westerly and southwesterly flow straight into the valley, which means the wind that would clear another city is also the wind that delivers the next wave, and a clear time here can be a genuinely short window.
Because almost everything upwind of Spokane is fire country. Central and eastern Washington, the Idaho panhandle, and western Montana all feed it, and British Columbia is the one people underestimate. A bad BC season puts smoke over Spokane repeatedly with nothing burning in Washington at all. Spokane has spent parts of recent summers with the worst measured air quality in the United States, which is not a ranking anyone here is surprised by.
Four places, and the Columbia Basin brings them all to the same door. Central and eastern Washington and the Idaho panhandle are close enough to change the air the same day. Western Montana adds to it from the east on the rarer setups. Interior British Columbia comes down from the north and is the source most often missed, because nothing on an American fire map explains it. Scrub the timeline backward and the direction answers the question.
The five-day strip above gives the day-by-day read and the timeline covers forty-eight hours hour by hour. Spokane’s bad stretches have historically run in weeks rather than days. 2015 and 2020 both produced multi-week runs of degraded air, so the five-day view is the one worth reading here, not the next hour. Forecasts are sharpest one to two days out and the page shows the spread.
Mount Spokane to the northeast is the far check at about twenty-five miles, with the Selkirks behind it holding their layers on a genuinely clean day. When Mount Spokane goes flat and blue and the ridgelines north of the valley lose their edges, smoke has arrived. Five Mile Prairie is the middle reading. The last one is from the South Hill: when downtown goes soft two miles below you, that is the bottom of the scale.
Where Spokane's smoke usually shows up first, and the places that share its air.
The Columbia Basin funnels westerly and southwesterly flow into the Spokane valley, and Portland sits at the mouth of the same system.
Central Idaho smoke arriving on southwesterly flow crosses the Treasure Valley before it reaches eastern Washington.
Out here two separate things decide your air: what arrives, and whether the ground you live on lets it leave.
Smokeshow is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not health, medical, or safety advice. Forecasts are model estimates and can be wrong, sometimes by a lot. Descriptions of what you might smell, see, or feel are generalizations, not predictions about your body. For decisions about your health, outdoor activity, or air quality safety, rely on official sources like AirNow.gov, the National Weather Service, and your local health authorities, and talk to a medical professional about your own situation.