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Regional Wildfires Bring Smoke to Four Corners Area

Austin Cope
/
KSJD
Smoke brought a gray-colored haze to areas south of Cortez Wednesday afternoon

Smoke from wildfires burning throughout the southwestern United States settled in parts of the KSJD listening area Wednesday morning. The Bonita fire northwest of Taos has burnedover 7,000 acres, and two fires near Flagstaff have each burned over 4,000 acres. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the smoke has impacted air quality in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, but the effects are not extreme enough to cause serious concern. Fire danger is expected to remain high through the end of the week throughout the Southwest, as hot and dry temperatures increase the spread and intensity of fires.

Austin Cope is a former Morning Edition host for KSJD and now produces work on a freelance basis for the station. He grew up in Cortez and hosted a show on KSJD when he was 10 years old. After graduating from Montezuma-Cortez High School in 2010, he lived in Belgium, Ohio, Spain, northern Wyoming, and Himachal Pradesh, India before returning to the Cortez area. He has a degree in Politics from Oberlin College in Ohio.