Smoke In Pass Area, Redlands Coming From Central, NorCal Fires

BEAUMONT, CA — Fire officials in Riverside and San Bernardino counties are advising residents that smoke wafting across the region is coming from fires burning hundreds of miles away.

"There is smoke looking towards mountains in San Bernardino, we have no active fires. This is likely drift smoke from the central/ Northern California fires," Cal Fire/San Bernardino County Fire Department tweeted out around 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

About 30 minutes later, Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department tweeted, "Drift smoke from fires in Central/Northern California is visible in Riverside County also."

Cal Fire provided a grim statewide update Thursday morning.

"Today, more than 9,300 personnel remain assigned to 10 active large wildfires. To date, more than 2.35 million acres have burned statewide," the agency reported.

Get the latest on these incidents at https://fire.ca.gov/incidents.

The most recent nearby wildland blaze broke out late Wednesday morning in San Bernardino County. The University fire was sparked by a vehicle along the 215 Freeway and charred between 50 and 100 acres in the Little Mountain area before its spread was halted just after 3 p.m.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which has jurisdiction in western Riverside County and into the Coachella Valley, issued a smoke advisory Thursday afternoon.

The agency explained that smoke is present in the upper atmosphere across the region, and impacts on surface air quality are expected in the San Bernardino, San Gabriel, and San Jacinto mountains as well as the Coachella Valley.

The "air quality index" may reach unhealthy levels or higher from Thursday afternoon until Friday afternoon, according to the agency.

To view current air quality conditions by region in an interactive map, see http://www.aqmd.gov/aqimap.

Air quality forecasts are available at http://www.aqmd.gov/forecast.