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Residents of southern Vancouver Island woke up to a hazy orange sky on Wednesday morning.
“I have been told that this is ash blowup from Mount St. Helens,” resident Marguerite Sutherland said.
“It’s hard to believe.”
U.S. weather officials say winds are kicking up old ash on Mount St. Helens left over from the 1980 eruption, and those particles are drifting through Washington State.
There was speculation the ash travelled hundreds of kilometres north, settling on surfaces in the capital region.
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However, Environment Canada says the ash in Victoria is from the Bear Gulch wildfire, which is about 6,300 hectares in size and burning west of Seattle.
“We see the plume over Victoria and it actually looks like it’s even making it into Howe Sound and points further north from there,” Dov Bensimon with Environment Canada’s Volcanic Ash Activity Centre said.
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Satellite images of 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
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While volcanic ash and wildfire smoke can affect people with respiratory issues, the difference between the two is that wildfire ash dissolves in water and varies in shape.
“Volcanic ash is very fine rock fragments,” Bensimon said. “So if you put it in water, it’s not going to dissolve. It’s more like extremely fine sand.”
He also said volcanic ash does not travel very far.
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