Smoke From Underground Wildfire Engulfs Highway

Smoke from an underground wildfire in New Orleans grew so thick that it engulfed Interstate 10 during the motorists’ morning commute to work.

Louisiana has battled an unprecedented wildfire season as drought grips the usually wet state. More than 67 percent of the state was suffering from exceptional drought, which is the U.S. Geological Survey’s most severe drought classification. Smoke from one underground wildfire took on a dense fog-like quality as it completely eliminated visibility on the busy highway on Tuesday morning. The thick smoke cloud comes just weeks after an intense “super fog” caused a deadly 158-vehicle pileup on Interstate 55 in New Orleans.

Photos shared on social media on Tuesday showed how the smoke totally covered the highway in only a few minutes.

“The smoke and even limited fog mix is not a joke,” the National Weather Service (NWS) in New Orleans posted on X, formerly Twitter, Tuesday morning. “This is a very impressive time lapse from I-10 of how quickly conditions can become undrivable (and this is how bad it was when the cars were not moving, imagine actually trying to drive through this).”

The City of New Orleans attributed the smoke to an active wildfire that is currently burning underground in the forested wetlands between Bayou Sauvage National Urban Wildlife Refuge and the Michoud Canal.

City officials said the wildfire hasn’t posed a threat to commercial or residential structures, but it did create undrivable conditions on Interstate 10.

“The biggest hazard from this active incident is smoke that is impacting air quality & driver visibility,” the city posted on X on Tuesday morning.

NWS New Orleans issued a dense smoke advisory early Tuesday morning, something that has only occurred two other times—once in November 2007 and again in September 2018.

The heavy smoke resulted in a fatal crash on Interstate 10 in the early morning hours, which closed the highway until 4 p.m. local time. The accident involved multiple vehicles and resulted in one fatality, the Associated Press reported.

NWS New Orleans said that the smoky conditions may not clear out from the area until Friday when a cold front moves into the area. Lead meteorologist Danielle Manning told Newsweek that an inversion formed overnight, meaning air doesn’t mix as well as it usually does.

The inversion trapped the smoke, and light surface winds blew it over I-10. The issue is expected to repeat itself Tuesday night and Wednesday night.

“We are definitely highlighting the potential for dense smoke and some fog mixed in as well tonight and tomorrow night in the same general area,” Manning said. “By Friday, it looks like the wind may shift the location for that densest smoke. It might move it toward the city itself.”

A cold front is expected to move in during the day on Friday, and Manning said that the wind will change to a “more favorable direction” by Friday night to push the smoke away from the city.