Rabbit Reche and Highland Wildfires Ozone Exceptional Events Demonstration

Exceptional Event Mitigation Plans

The Rabbit, Reche, and Highland Wildfires all started on July 14, 2023 in Riverside County within the jurisdiction of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD). The Exceptional Events Demonstration provides evidence that smoke from the fires influenced ozone concentrations at Palm Springs on July 14 and July 15, 2023 and the ozone exceedances were not reasonably controllable or preventable and requests U.S. EPA to exclude the affected data from regulatory calculations.

The draft exceptional events demonstration was made available for a 30-day public comment period ending October 27th, 2024. On December 10, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concurred with the request to exclude the ozone data affected by the wildfires from regulatory calculations. The ozone data affected by these fires at the Palm Springs measurement station will still be available in the U.S. EPA Air Quality System and on the South Coast AQMD webpage.