Where German Easter fires burn on Saturday evening, Dutch Easter fires burn on Easter Sunday. So this Easter Monday morning it’s time to look at the second spike of PM10 pollution in the air. The smell in the garden is as strong as yesterday.
The sensor grid shows a much more muted picture this morning. First the same sensors as I looked at yesterday.
Ter Apel (on the German border, have their own fire on Sunday evening, had an extreme reading after the German fires), shows twice the norm. Still a high outlier, but it pales in comparison to the 5 times the norm reading a day earlier. The peak also dissipates more quickly.
Upwind from us, in the Flevo polders, it is a similar picture, a less distinct peak than yesterday but still well above twice the norm.
And near us in Utrecht the readings are actually about the same as yesterday. That matches with my perception that the smell around our house is about the same as yesterday. It also implies that though yesterdays fires were much closer, they were perhaps less in numbers (some were cancelled due to drought) or intensity, or they weren’t actually as neatly upwind from us as the German fires and passed to the south of us.
The latter seems to be borne out by readings from some of the other sensors.
First Eibergen, on the border between the Twente and Achterhoek regions, an area with lots of Easter fires.
Eibergen shows a higher peak due to the Sunday fires than the day before, yet both peaks are in the same range at 2 to 2.5 times the norm.
South and east of the region we see similar patterns.
In Nijmegen more southern, the peak is higher than the day before, because they were not downwind of many German fires.
On the Veluwe, which is more eastern and closer to us, the peak is again lower than the day before yet still distinct.
Overall the pollution of Sunday’s fires is less visible across the Netherlands. Where Saturday’s fires made sensors go into the red from the north-eastern border, southwesterly across the country to Amsterdam, for Sunday’s fires such a clear corridor doesn’t show.
