PIERRE — Smoke from Canadian wildfires is expected to dissipate Friday. At it’s peak, conditions in Pierre got pretty bad. The website fire.airnow.gov shows air quality monitors around the country. A monitor in Pierre indicated the air quality in was the hazardous category, the index’s highest, from 10 pm Wednesday through nine am Thursday, an 11-hour period. Pierre’s air quality was listed as good at six pm Wednesday. It went to moderate at seven pm and entered the unhealthy category at eight pm on May 17th. It jumped to the very unhealthy category an hour later at nine pm and jumped to hazardous an hour after that. The air quality in Pierre went from good to hazardous in only four hours. The air quality index for Pierre topped out at 444 at 11 pm. The scale peaks at 500. The 11pm max air pollution from the smoke Wednesday hit an hourly concentration of pollution of point-five-zero-six parts per million of pollutants. Dupree was under hazardous on the index from seven pm to three am with an hourly concentration of pollution at it’s max of point-five-five-one parts per million.
