Well, here we go again.
The Dixie Fire (to our north) is now the 3rd largest fire ever in California. We feel terrible for anyone who has had to be evacuated, or lost their home.
Here in the Bay Area, the smoke has finally begun to affect our air quality. Yesterday, we logged in to Purple Air for the first time in 2021. It was necessary, because we could both see and smell smoke. Sure enough, our AQI was quite poor. This means shutting the doors and staying inside as much as possible. It also means that the strange red and grey skies are back.
The light in the house yesterday afternoon was eerie.
And sunsets/sunrises are also different. Beautiful, but not for the right reasons.
The problem with fire here is enormous and won’t be easily solved. I wrote a paper for my summer class that I thought might interest you; the prompt was that we write our paper as a historian, who is asked to consult on a modern environmental issue. I wrote about wildfire. None of this information is new, but I learned a lot by looking at it from a historical perspective, and maybe you will too.