Reminds me of the wildfires in Oregon in 2020. The sky was orange and the air was brown, depending on which day it was. It was very surreal. Hopefully it won't get too bad for you.

 

2020 was bad in northern Colorado/southern Wyoming too. The Cameron Peak fire was the biggest in Colorado history. The Mullen fire right across the border in Wyoming burned 177,000 acres. They burned around the same time, and not very far from each other. The Cameron Peak fire came within 13 miles of my cabin. It was a long summer.

 

Yup- Mother Nature's brutal and effective forest management program was in full view. One positive is that those vast swaths of beatle kill ponderosa have been removed from the future fire threat.

 

You're fine. It's eerie, and shave your neck.

 

One reason we've taken the PNW and northern rockies off our "list." Nice to visit but I wouldn't want to get stuck there in smoke season. It's just going to get worse I'm afraid.

 

The forest service is trying to do something, at least. There’s a lot of work scheduled in the area around me.

 

I feel ya. I live up in the mountains and we get so many fires every season. Always nervous when ash starts falling out of the sky.

 

Im on the coast and it's almost obscuring the mountain view.

 

We smell it in the Black Hills

 

Last night I couldn’t see Mt Baker but didn’t think too much about it due to thunderstorms the previous night. This morning woke to an orange, hazy sky, and you could smell the smoke. Cleared up a fair amount, except for no Baker tonight.

 

North of Seattle I can't smell smoke but have been coughing lately for no apparent reason, don't feel sick or anything.

 

Once i was slowly still hunting through the woods in late october 5 years ago and i was paying very close attention to where i was placing my feet. A shadow flew over me, and when i looked up i saw a vulture was passing by overhead. I caught some more movement throught the forest canopy and notice another vulture whos flight path was perpendicular to the last one's. Then i caught more and more movement through the canopy. Over the next minute or so i saw no less then 20 other vultures flying silently overhead- their paths were all roughly perpendicular to eachother but spread out remarkably evenly. They were not just circling, their flight paths were not concentrated over one area they were all passing over weaving over eachother flight paths and it wasnt random. The straightness of their line and the synchonicity of their movement really struck me as unnatural for whatever reason- ive seen lots of vultures before and love to investigate the areas they circle around to see what forest drama may have taken place. But this was different- they were flying in some sort of formation, It was like a big checkerboard of vultures flying overhead but slowly moving forward northwest against the wind in the direction i was headed. It was extremely quiet and id never seen vultures fly like that before and for some reason i remember feeling a sense of dread like something bad was about to happen.

Im not superstitious... but I drew my handgun and immediately took cover in the Y of a big fallen oak tree and just scanned the forest for 10-15 minutes or so. The vultures passed over uneventfully way before that feeling went away and absolutely nothing happened.

The experience was extremely odd for me, and ive always chalked it up to me psyching myself out- but ill never forget it. I wondered if it was some residual instinct or whatever because the feeling was far more visceral of a response than what ive felt before when i have been in other situations with legitimate clear and present danger. It was uncanny.

 

Natural instinct; the ability to read the world around you and react to it. It's a great skill to have, and less and less people do. It may not always be right, but it gives you the advantage.

 

I'm in the PNW and really enjoy the smoke season for now. I like the smell and the sunsets. It might get old one day if it's too long or intense, or if I get old and my body can't tolerate the particulates.

 

I have had a weird sort of feeling all of late winter/early spring ,,sort of like I am missing something I should be aware of

to the point of the last few months I would wake up in the middle of the night on alert and lay there listening trying to figure out what had woke me up

 

Some days here in Anchorage, it is like living in a giant BBQ pit, the smoke is so bad.

 

I am in a small heavily forested valley in Canada that just went from having an uncontrolled wildfire status for 4 days to "Held" meaning it has hot spots but expected now to stay in a contained area about 7 miles up valley.

Canada has 200 Australian and New Zealand firefighters coming to aid efforts in a mutual arrangement as we have opposite wildfire seasons .

 

The news says there are 91 fires in Canada causing all the smoke. Are these remote wildlands and "natural" fires? Or just hard to snuff fires in managed forests with roads? Or maybe something else. The daughters were asking if anybody was really fighting them.

 

Back around 1998 I was working in a mobile home factory and having a lot of trouble with my asthma. It was caused because of big fires in Mexico blowing all the way up to where I am south of Ft.Worth. The sky was somewhat like in the OP. Hazy and obscured sun from the smoke.

 

With all the smoke in the air from the big fires in Canada and the wind shifting around to coming from the east, it feels a bit errie out here. I know those fires are a long way off, but I can still smell, taste, feel that smoke in the air. Combine that with the storm winds shift, it just raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

I've done a few "chores" that I normally do before storms and was happy to shut the chickens and goats in the stables for the night. Everything just feels...wrong. Instincts are powerful, even when the logical mind knows I'm as safe as I ever was.

This picture is of the sun in a blue sky as it sets through smoke from fires several hundred miles away. Stay safe out there.

View attachment 518844

I know the feeling. We've had forest fires here in the southeast that were several hundred miles away and affected us pretty severely. Like you said, you can smell it, taste it and feel it. We even had ashes falling. The sky was brownish/orange and didn't see the sun for days. Ironically, we'll usually get a hurricane to come and blow it all away, so there's that.

I grew up in rural Michigan, so I'm familiar with the territory. It sounds like you are pretty grounded and can take care of yourself. Like you said, instincts are powerful.

I hope things improve for you, soon!

 

Yeah, it was really bad here yesterday. Wind shifted today and it was much better, but still smoky.

 

Wow that is terrible!

 

It woke me up really early with a sense of alarm. The AC helped but, not very much. I need an air purifier for these things.
My eyes and nose burned all day. It could not have been good for anyone's health.
The air is fine now with a little smoke to the West at high altitude. But, I can still feel the effects in my nose... booger central. lol
They even issued travel warnings due to low visibility. At it's worst it was just a couple hundred yards.

 

It's odd too when you smell smoke your alarm instincts go off, but when you smell smoke for days on end a fire could be closer and you do not trigger , just assume it is the drift you have been smelling for days.
Our local wildfire season went from 3 months to 7 months this last year. Fire ban is in place as of yesterday but I never got my stacks burned so will have to wait for fall .

Our local fire is still "Held" and flames are not visible .

 

Smoke Forecast - FireSmoke.ca