Unhealthy air quality closes trails, roads in Mount Rainier, other WA parks

Smoke floating thousands of feet above the ground on Friday has meant a mostly harmless haze for Seattle, but national parks much closer to wildfires are issuing warnings and closing some trails.

Air quality in Seattle and much of the metropolitan area has been good to moderate on the Air Quality Index Thursday and Friday, even as a warm glow settled over the city.

Much of the wildfire smoke has been aloft thousands of feet above the ground in Western Washington.

“You can see it, but you can’t breathe it,” wrote Beth Friedman, a lead air quality modeler and forecaster for the Washington State Department of Ecology, in a Friday post on Washington Smoke Blog.

Friedman said some smoke may impact the foothill communities such as Enumclaw, with periods of “unhealthy for sensitive groups” ai