OT: Smoke from forest fires

I need to vent. Forest fires blew up west of town. The smoke last night was thick enough to cut with a knife.

Twice I've parked my truck where there was smoke from forest fires ... I was amazed how bad it seemed when I took my mask off to get up to pee ... And how much better as soon as I put my mask on ...

I remember the 2009 black saturday fires here in Victoria Australia (173 people died). It burned for weeks. The smoke was awful, it got everywhere and into everything. Carpet and curtain cleaning was very popular in the following months.

msla, I hope the fires are brought quickly under control wit minimal damage

Change your filters, kids.

At least we haven't experienced what the country did with the 1910 fire in N. Idaho. Smoke from that fire drifted all the way to Chicago.

Western Montana for me. # 1 fire at the present time is the Lolo Complex, about 15-20 miles west of town.

msla wrote:Western Montana for me. # 1 fire at the present time is the Lolo Complex, about 15-20 miles west of town.

Please keep it down there, last time there were fires in Montana, the smoke drifted to my neck of the woods............. and I definitely don't need it
Hope it clears for you soon... not a pleasant occurrence.
Nan

I was running errands and there was a grass fire near our neighborhood. My asthma kicked in pretty bad. I was close to home, so I ran home and closed all the windows. I took my inhaler and laid down with my CPAP. It really helped! I fell asleep (putting on my cpap mask does that to me!) and when I woke the air had cleared.

For those who may wish to see just how many fires there are and where and their size, you can find them at a couple of websites:

National Interagency Fire Center

nifc(dot)gov

http : // www . nifc . gov/fireInfo/nfn . htm


InciWeb (Incident Information System)

inciweb(dot)org

http : // www . inciweb . org/


(Copy and take the spaces out of the links)


Den

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We were on vacation up at Lake Tahoe, smoky on the way up there not bad when we were there. And we were going to come back down between Tahoe and Yosemite and spend the night somewhere. Came back over Highway 4, since Highway 120 was closed due to the fire near Yosemite being only 5% contained. Very smoky still, and the sunlight along Highway 4 in the high areas was really strange, kind of orangie yellow, eerie light. Couldn't see beyond the trees on the side of the road in some places because of the smoke. We passed several forest service firetrucks going up the other way with full flashing lights (no sirens at that point, though).

Cut our vacation a little short, since we decided not to spend the last night in the Sierras, and just came home instead. Fire season is really bad this year...

idamtnboy wrote:At least we haven't experienced what the country did with the 1910 fire in N. Idaho. Smoke from that fire drifted all the way to Chicago.

The 2009 fires here, smoke drifted as far as the North Island of New Zealand! Amazing how far smoke can travel given the right conditions.

Chunky excelent suggestion about changing filters, I would also clean/change filters in AC units etc.

Yes, indeed. Also a good site is http://fires.globalincidentmap.com/
I like it because it is interactive and when you place the pointer on a fire symbol, it gives the latest (i.e no. of buildings burned, acreage, etc)
Also, let's keep the firefighters and pilots in our prayers tonight and for the next days ahead, that no one will be harmed. It looks as though its going to be a good while before this is over.