The Butte County Air Quality Management District released its 2024 summary this week, showing generally good air quality across the county last year — a trend that has continued for several years.
Senior Air Quality Planner Jason Mandly said the county did not exceed any federal health standards for ozone in 2023.
“We did have one exceedance of the state standard,” Mandly said. “That happened for just one hour during one specific day where we were getting impacts from the Park Fire.”
However, a separate report from the American Lung Association, also released this week, paints a different picture. That report gave low grades — D or F — to several counties in the North State for ozone pollution, including Butte.
Mandly said the difference between the two reports is that they use different timeframes and methodologies.
“The American Lung Association report looks at the three-year period from 2021 to 2023,” he said. “It does not include 2024.”
He noted that the Lung Association’s grades reflect historically bad fire seasons, particularly the Dixie Fire in 2021, which burned nearly one million acres and filled the region with smoke for months.
Wildfires are a major contributor to ozone pollution, which is the main component of smog, and the impact is often exacerbated by high heat and drought.
Ozone forms when pollutants from fires, fossil fuel emissions, and other sources react in sunlight. Hot temperatures accelerate the chemical process that creates ozone, while drought reduces the ability of plants to absorb air pollutants. That allows ozone to linger longer in the atmosphere.
Despite population growth and more cars on the road, California’s air quality has steadily improved over the decades. That’s thanks in part to the country’s first air pollution control efforts, which began in Los Angeles County in 1947.
