The smoke smell in Philly likely came from controlled burns in New Jersey. It won’t last.
The smoke odor evidently was imported by winds from the east and southeast, says a weather service meteorologist.
That smoky odor in the Philly air that has drawn some social-media buzz in all likelihood resulted from controlled burns in New Jersey forest lands, officials said.
While no new fires were scheduled Wednesday, “there could be residual smoke from earlier burns,” said Larry Hajna, spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
On Tuesday, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service identified six sites for its “prescribed burning operations,” including sites in Pemberton and Tabernacle Townships in Burlington County.
“It kind of turned a little smoky, and that coincided with wind taking an east-southeast direction,” said Eric Hoeflich, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.
Between 5 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday, winds were blowing from the east and southeast at 6 to 13 mph, according to official observations at Philadelphia International Airport. After daybreak Wednesday, light winds were blowing from the east for several hours.
Hajna said the predicted rains, which are threatening the Phillies’ home opener on Thursday, should rout the smoke.
» READ MORE: Here are photos from the wildfire last year at the Wharton State Forest that burned 15,000 acres
After “an abnormally active fire year in 2023,” the Forest Fire Service said, it planned to burn a total of about 25,000 acres of forests, grasslands, and marsh in 2024. About 18,000 acres were lost to wildfires last year, the agency said.
In prescribed burning, fires are set under controlled conditions to reduce potential fuel for wildfires and improve habitats for plants and animals.