Smoke sky since Sunday. The sun doesn't rise. The sky is neither clouded nor clear. It smells and feels wrong. There are over 60 fires burning in BC and the weather turned. The wind started blowing from the land. Our clear beautiful dry summer, too dry, yes, changed.
The day it changed, right after the explosions of July 4th, my son and I drove to the ferry so he could return to Seattle. We were both slightly on edge. We stopped to pick something up from his friend and said hi to the family. We talked about the odd sky. We are used to waking up to clouds so low that we can reach out of the upstairs windows and touch the delicate underside. In the summer, low fog clouds portend a clear day. They burn off. But a dry morning and high clouds and no sun: not normal. We all sniffed the air and talked of fires.
I wondered if California is burning. But the next day I saw that no, it's way further north. BC is burning. BC is burning so much that the town to the north of us keeps calling the fire department.
Everyone is a little irritable. The air quality is poor. No one feels quite right and my emphysema patients will soon start coming in. But it's the irritability that interests me: will we turn and start ripping each other apart?
My sister in law lives in BC. Their house isn't threatened yet but they are living in smoke.
Perhaps the world will end in fire.
262