Wildfire smoke
February 2001 Polk County wildfire-smoke episode
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 59.2 µg/m³ near Lakeland across 3 covered metros home to 4.7 million people. 3 metros placed a top-ten day in their record.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 1.7 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 8.2 million cigarettes. An awareness illustration of outdoor exposure at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette (Berkeley Earth), counting only the event's ranked days; not a medical dose.
Episode peak
-- cigarettes
The smoke map's scale, replayed over this event: the surface interpolates between covered metros' daily records, framed to the affected region. Hover for a reading, click a metro to pin it to the card. Days a monitor did not report draw nothing.
What happened, in the record
The frozen baseline classifies this event as wildfire smoke, and the retained NOAA, Florida legislative, and scientific records consistently document the contemporaneous Polk City-Lakeland wildfire and smoke occurrence.
Sequence: Orlando (Feb 17) → Lakeland (Feb 18) → North Port (Feb 18)
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL | 59.2 µg/m³ | 2.7 | Feb 18, 2001 | #2 of its top days |
| North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL | 48 µg/m³ | 2.2 | Feb 18, 2001 | #2 of its top days |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 40.7 µg/m³ | 1.9 | Feb 17, 2001 | #6 of its top days |
"Cigarettes, whole event" totals a metro's ranked event days at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette: what a person outdoors there breathed across the event, as the illustration. "All-time standing" is where this episode's days sit in each metro's ranked record (worst-area measure, since 1999). Full local context is on each metro's Air Records page.
The evidence
Agency and publisher pages 3
- Legislative Budget Commission Meeting A Florida legislative record lists a federal fire-suppression-assistance grant for the Lakeland Fire District dated February 18, 2001, corroborating a significant Lakeland-area wildfire at the end of this event window; it does not attribute PM2.5 concentrations to the fire.
- Central Florida Super Fog - Carnage on Interstate -4 This meteorological conference paper describes a February 18–24, 2001 northern Polk County wildfire, reporting that it burned along and north of the I-4 corridor and closed a section of I-4 between Polk City and Lakeland because of wildfire conditions. It corroborates the nearby wildfire timing but does not establish attribution for the PM2.5 observations.
- February 2001 Storm Data and Unusual Weather Phenomena NOAA's monthly Storm Data narrative reports a February 17 wildfire near the Polk City–Lakeland section of Interstate 4 and a variable smoke plume that reduced visibility. It documents a local smoke source during the event window, but does not attribute the listed PM2.5 observations, including Orlando, to that fire.
Cited authorities: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
What remains uncertain
- The retained records establish the contemporaneous wildfire-smoke occurrence but do not quantify its contribution at each Orlando, Lakeland, and Sarasota monitor.
Status and provenance
Research preview: this record carries research-only status and its boundaries, cause, and name may change as evidence review completes. Grouping policy common_sense_root_cause_grouping.v2. The cause label reflects the assembled evidence above, not an IAQng detection formula.