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Medford air quality improves, but alert still in effect By Nick Morgan Updated: Aug 06, 2021 12:29 PM A A The U.S. Forest Service’s Regional Air Quality Program released this map of air quality map for Oregon Friday morning showing air quality measured in the "good“ category, but a few locations still experiencing unhealthy levels of smoke. Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest photo. After more than a day and a half of “unhealthy” smoke levels, Southern Oregon’s air quality improved to moderate, but officials expect smoke levels to keep fluctuating throughout the weekend. As of 11 a.m. Friday, Medford showed an air quality index of 79 or “moderate,” but for about 12 hours overnight local air quality improved to “good” levels, according to the U.S. Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program’s Friday outlook for the South Oregon Cascades region. At 9 p.m. Thursday, the Medford air quality monitor recorded a reading of 21, the best AQI reading of the month. Behind the improved air quality were northwest winds that pushed the smoke south and east Thursday, prompting the forecasts of clear skies for the Rogue Valley, according to the Wildfire Air Quality Response Program and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. For areas of the state near local fires — such as the Rogue Valley — the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality expects smoke levels to fluctuate through at least the weekend. Friday’s air quality in Medford is expected to range from “good” to “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” and Saturday’s AQI forecast will largely hover around the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” level. Firefighters continued their mop up progress on the remaining fires in Southern Oregon that are still burning after the wave of lightning storms that began last week. according to the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. All 46 fires that burned 45 acres since July 29 are considered “contained,” “controlled“ or ”out.“ The largest of the contained fires are the Maple Dell fire burning 10 acres in the Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District and the Bear Camp fire burning 4.5 acres in the Wild Rivers Ranger District. Other fires burning in the Siskiyou Mountains, High Cascades and Gold Beach ranger districts are between a tenth to less than a third of an acre. The Round Top fire burning 10 miles northwest of Shady Cove was holding at 23 acres, and the Buck Rock fire burning five miles north of Trail was holding at 17 acres as of Thursday evening, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry Southwest Oregon District. ODF Southwest Oregon is now releasing updates once a day during the evenings because the thunderstorm activity that began last week has diminished and fire conditions are not significantly changing.