Orange skies

Air quality, 12 September 2020

I have blogged before about fires here in California, and the destruction they leave behind them. Back then--October 2017--we played a game of cat-and-mouse with the smoke, departing for Yosemite and then coming back once offshore winds had moved the pollution away from our home. What is happening now is on a totally different scale. To escape the smoke caused by the current fires near and far we would have to get on an airplane and fly to the other side of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of about a thousand miles. To be really sure, we would have to go even farther: smoke from these fires has reached Nebraska, five hundred miles further to the East. (For our European readers, that is further than the distance from Amsterdam to Moscow.)

Back here in California, the smoke is so thick that for the better part of a week we haven't seen the sun, except once or twice, as a faint pink ball. We wake each day to a world without shadows, dusted with ash that's fallen from a gray sky. Except for Wednesday, when the sky was orange. "What fresh hell?!" texted a friend of mine from the city, gazing out at this view...

The view from Dolores Park

The smoke that caused this apocalyptic effect came down from Oregon, where currently more than a tenth of the entire state's population is under evacuation notice, if they haven't already fled. Oregon, which is known for its lush greenery, is also on fire, with many towns utterly destroyed and the city of Portland itself threatened.

Still, the smoke can mostly be avoided, at least by those of us privileged to work in our own homes, serviced by grocery delivery, and with plenty of HEPA filters around and about. But what about the fires themselves, do they pose any real threat? At the moment, they do not, but things this time do feel even more...personal. For one thing, the Woodward Fire, the source of the smoke I mentioned in my last post, is less than 20 miles from our home, the nearest such event since we've lived here. Sparked by lightning, it has been burning since August 18th, and isn't expected to be fully contained until September 12th. That fire grew rapidly, and scarily, because it is in deep woods difficult to access, and because with so many fires burning elsewhere it couldn't be properly attended to until teams were brought in from Montana.

Fire fighting encampment in the next valley over

That fire is under control, but there are much larger fires raging totally out of control elsewhere in the state. This photo is one of the more terrifying images associated with the current conflagrations:

View from the Bidwell Bar Bridge over Lake Berryessa, 9 September 2020

This is nowhere near us, but we did drive over this bridge on our way back from camping just a few weeks ago. Indeed, Gid and I got out to walk across it:

Same bridge, less than a month ago

Those trees are gone, the road is closed, and the nearby town of Berry Creek, which I noted as we passed through because even from the road it was obvious that the creek was indeed full of berries, has been destroyed.

In truth, it is only a matter of time before fire swings through our neighborhood. We live with go-bags packed, escape routes noted...we are fire safe, but not fire proof. So why stay, you ask? Because, in truth, it is only a matter of time before climate disaster finds all of us, everywhere, and here in California we are at least learning the true scope of that disaster while there is still time to prepare for it.