Tag: wildfire

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Life: It feels like summer (ask the fog)

Summer Indoors (27 May)
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

The forecast this week suggests it will be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7+ degrees Celsius) for a few days out where my family lives, yet it is still (technically) spring. That hot weather pulls a blanket of fog across me, and… I’m okay with that.

Plus: it is still allergy season. But all of us sniffling, coughing people have known that for a month.

Oh, and: wildfire season. An 11,000 acre fire is burning in an area east of the City, and evacuations are in effect for the nearest town. With high winds yesterday, it spread very quickly. I was growing fond of NOT reading about fires in my state…

Wherever you are while reading this, I hope you are safe, not crying/sneezing, have no need to evacuate, and are dressed appropriately for whatever the weather delivers to you.

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Climate Crisis: California Fire Sizes

There is a pattern. It isn’t a good pattern.

This is a very informative graphic, however unpleasant the data:

While I’m not writing daily about the huge wildfires raging in my state (and throughout the North American West, plus elsewhere in the world), I’m aware of the fires every day. The color of the sunlight, the tint of the sky, the low visibility, the air quality warnings… I learn to celebrate the good air days with zeal, because it’s what I’ve got.

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Climate Emergency: California fires (today, and for so many days)

The smoke hanging over us every day is a difficult and stressful reminder of what is happening to places we love.

Every day, the news names places I have been to, places I have hiked through, places I have photographed, and notes that these places are on fire at that very moment.

We aren’t yet at the phase where we fundamentally rethink how to live here, and how to be safer and more environmentally responsible, not just at an individual level – individuals can’t solve this alone! – but region-wide at a governmental, societal, and even corporate level. We really need to have those conversations. Soon.

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Climate Emergency Life: Oddly Tinted Sunlight Persists

When I look directly at the sun (which I should not be able to do), the sun and the light that reaches us here at ground/sea level still has a strangely orange tint. Considering the vastness of the fires in my region, this shouldn’t be a surprise.

It’s not just my region, of course. There are fires all up the western coast of North America, and serious fires in Canada that have also destroyed entire towns. Heck, it isn’t even about North America. This month, we have seen raging fires in Turkey, raging fires in Greece, even raging fires in SIBERIA, in North Africa, in… well, you get it.

Strangely, a colleague said a friend of hers was leaving California to avoid the wildfires. I made a face, because… leaving one state to escape the global climate emergency won’t work. (I’m not listing all the locations that have experienced floods in the news over the past month, but it is just as long a list, and it is happening for all the same reasons…) I wonder how long it will take her friend to figure that out…

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News: Smoke Darkens Sky Across California

We had a dark day on September 9th, and I’m still seeing amazing photos of it. My own neighborhood was covered in fog, so I couldn’t see far in the orange twilight that dominated the day, caused by smoke high in our atmosphere.

Others beyond the fog line did a lot with the view! I’ll share some of their great work, linked back to the source.

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What #SanFrancisco looks like almost 2 hours after sunrise. #CaliforniaFires pic.twitter.com/KD6t39ctV1

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Life on Mars 🪐#OrangeSky pic.twitter.com/Yptmgd9qQf

And video:

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