Smoke report

[radiantfracture]

A bright orange sun this morning, so damped down by the smoke that I could look directly at it without pain and without printing dazzled shapes on my eye. The shadows are blue-green -- the whole world seems luridly and childishly painted in orange and turquoise.

I can't imagine what it's like where the fires are. Well, I can go look at pictures. That would help me imagine. (Goes and looks at pictures.) Jesus.

We're hundreds of kilometers away, but I can taste ash today, and the air is syrupy, yet full of prickly heat. S. said "I feel like I'm walking in the location of an indoor heated pool," and I suggested it was like wading through warm custard. I'll amend. Warm custard full of pins. I had plans to go to yoga and the community market, but this clammy needling heat defeats me.

I'm told (by minim_calibre, for one) that the smoke has drifted as far as Seattle.

This is -- you know -- really something.

Here's A CBC article with this cheerful subhead: "Kamloops, B.C., saw an air quality health risk rating of 18 — on a scale that normally stops at 10." But (the article continues) it was worse in Williams Lake, where it got up to 36/10 a couple of weeks ago.

(We're going to need a bigger scale.)

The air quality is sitting at a paltry 6 here, so I had better stop being so dramatic.

{rf}

Comments

[sovay]

A bright orange sun this morning, so damped down by the smoke that I could look directly at it without pain and without printing dazzled shapes on my eye. The shadows are blue-green -- the whole world seems luridly and childishly painted in orange and turquoise.

That sounds great for an alien planet and bad for this one.

Warm custard full of pins.

That is well-amended.

[shewhomust]

This is -- you know -- really something.

It is indeed. Wow.

[naye]

Oh wow, that sounds awful. I haven't seen much reporting about the fires here in the UK, so the link was quite stunning - that's... a LOT of smoke (and a lot of fire). I wish them all the best putting those out, and you all the best with getting through the hot days full of bad air.

[intertext]

The moon was white in Toronto when I flew out, and dark orange when I arrived here last night. We flew over the fires on the way out - the plumes of smoke were huge and terrifying.

[radiantfracture]

Of course -- I hadn't thought, but naturally you'd fly over and see the smoke from above. I've seen some sattelite photos that are truly alarming. Did you take pictures? What were your thoughts?

[intertext]

I didn't take pictures - I only had my iPhone with me, and tend to be a bit reluctant to take pics out of a plane window. I'm kind of sorry though. The scale of it really hit me - you know, seeing pics from the ground is bad enough, but when you see this billow of smoke going on and on for kms, it is shocking and frightening.