The third Spare the Air alert in a row was issued for Thursday, with officials urging those in the Bay Area to carpool or take public transit to work to cut down on smog and pollution.
The air quality on Thursday was expected to be the worst for the East Bay, which ranked a 104, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's Air Quality Index. Anything over 101, according to the chart, is considered "unhealthy for sensitive groups." The rest of the Bay Area fell into the "moderate" ranking of air pollution concentrations.
Thursday marked the 7th Spare the Air alert for 2015. In all, 1996 had the most number of Spare the Air alerts with 25 issued that year, 1995 had 24 alerts issued and 1993 had 19 alerts.
In addition, the National Weather Service issued its third heat advisory from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. And for the second day, the eight schools in the Campbell Unified High School District will release students at 11:30 a.m. because only half of its campuses have air conditioning.
Temperatures were expected to reach 105 degrees in the Tri-Valley, 101 degrees in the North Bay and 96 degrees in the South Bay. The National Weather Service expects temperatures to cool late Thursday afternoon.
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