Sacramento residents are smelling smoke. A controlled burn in Tehama County, fires to the south near Yosemite and a punishing heat wave that has stifled Delta breezes are among the culprits, meteorologists say.
“We’ve had a heat wave for a week, and it’s not a little hot, there’s a massive high pressure system in the atmosphere,” said Sacramento Bee newsroom meteorologist Sean Macaday. The heat wave that pushed temperatures to near-records across the Sacramento Valley also created an inversion layer that has trapped the hot air — and any smoke — above the valley floor.
“It’s an inversion. Air’s not rising, there’s no Delta breeze,” sealing everything from backyard barbecue smoke to larger fires in the skies, Macaday said.
But plenty of sources of smoke fouled Sacramento’s air on Tuesday, including a large controlled burn in western Tehama County and blazes burning to the south in Tuolumne and Mariposa counties.
The forecast calls for moderate air quality — an air quality index of 60 — on Tuesday and Wednesday, even as temperatures hover in the 90s across the Sacramento area.
The prescribed burn by Corning Land & Cattle Co. on Tehama County rangeland has consumed about 5,000 acres over the last couple of days, sending smoke drifting into the valley.
In Sacramento, a brush fire late Monday on the American River Parkway produced more smoke.
But meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Sacramento said the region is also experiencing smoke from the Piute Fire burning in Tuolumne County and the 6,800-acre Dome Fire, now 40% contained, in Yosemite National Park.
“There’s no wind, so that smoky feel is definitely hanging around,” said meteorologist Jeffery Wood in Sacramento. Unseasonably high temperatures prevail through Friday, with readings in the 90s across the Sacramento and northern San Joaquin valleys, according to National Weather Service forecasters.
But that will change by the weekend, The Bee’s Macaday said, as a low-pressure system finally pushes the ridge of high pressure to the east starting later Friday. Temperatures are expected to drop into the 70s across the region by Sunday.
“As a low pressure trough slides in between Friday and Saturday, that will come with a big sea change. Wind will immediately rush in, and it will feel more comfortable Saturday and Sunday,” Macaday said. “It’s literally a fall breeze.”
This story was originally published October 6, 2026 at 12:12 PM.
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Darrell Smith is a local reporter for The Sacramento Bee. He joined The Bee in 2006 and previously worked at newspapers in Palm Springs, Colorado Springs and Marysville. Smith was born and raised at Beale Air Force Base and lives in Elk Grove.