I'll be in Washington next week for a long-anticipated bike tour. As I understand things, wildfires have led to closures of some major roads in the north-central part of the state -- and the forecast is for continued dry weather.

If you're in the middle of this, you have my sympathies; if you are involved in the efforts to control the fires, you have my thanks.

How are the efforts against the fires going? How far does the smoke extend? Are folks in Seattle having their asthma get worse from the smoke of fires 50 miles away?

(I can pack albuterol; but sadly, I can't pack up a Philly afternoon shower and bring it with me.)

Where are you going on your trip?

The winds mostly blow from west to east. The photo below is about a week old, it shows a low cloud layer over western Washington (especially the Puget trough) and smoke to the east. It's when we get a heat wave that air comes in from east of the Cascades.

Yesterday I rode from Ellensburg to Coulee City, no smoke anywhere.(Ellensburg is 100 miles east of Seattle, Coulee City is 93 miles tot he NE of me, due east of where the worst fire is burning.) You are doing the RAW ride right? I've not heard of any fires over on the peninsula. As Forrest says the wind generally is blowing from the Pacific inland so the smoke goes east. Enjoy your ride and stay!

In Seattle proper, the winds almost never blow from the East. Mostly they come around the mountains to the west of us and end up coming from the south and southwest (most of the time) and sometimes the north and northwest (most of the past few weeks). So we aren't getting any of that smoke here.

I'm sure Forrest is right and that just to the north and south of Seattle (the "convergence zone" of the wind going around the Olympic Mountains) the wind is mostly coming from the west. I would expect that anywhere to the west of the fires isn't affected by them.

Did you have a planned route already? If you tell us what that was we might be able to help more with conditions.

Have you seen this?

https://www.wsdot.com/traffic/trafficalerts/

Black wallnut got it right: I'll be doing the RAW ride, anticlockwise through the Olympic Peninsula.

Thanks for the info!

Jeneralist, how did you like RAW?

Shifty she posted a ride report in the Athena and Clydesdale forum.