Have you been to the Columbia Gorge?
- Thread starter Charcat
- Start date
Yes. I have been to the Columbia Gorge. More than once. I have lifelong friends who live near there (Corbett area)........ who will soon be evacuated and they may lose their home.
Praying for rain.
My daughter in law in Washington is pregnant and I pray the bad air quality will not affect my grandchild.
I understand that. About 10 years,there were massive acres burning in Mexico and Latin America and air currents pushed the smoke through Texas. You could see it in satellite photographs. We had them wild sunrises and sunsets air quality warnings for about a week. Woke me up one night it got so bad.
Fire season is a rough time for the west, even with abundant rainfall over the past year.
Yosemite, Glacier, LA...The Gorge...Sad. Idiot teens tossing firecrackers...Mindless.
I was worried about Wawona in Yosemite. That fire has calmed down, just one mile from those historic lodging properties.
Yosemite, Glacier, LA...The Gorge...Sad. Idiot teens tossing firecrackers...Mindless.
I was worried about Wawona in Yosemite. That fire has calmed down, just one mile from those historic lodging properties.
I have been in/ near burning areas, but none so bad that I feared for my lungs. Or maybe I was just naive. When I lived on LaMaddalena there were fires on Sardinia and on LaMaddalena. Our Navy Housing area was cut off from the town and the rest of the island for a while. They had planes picking up water from the Mediterranean and dropping it on the fires. Our houses were all stone (tile roofs) but we feared at one point we would have to climb down the rocky cliffs to the water if the fire kept coming.
Fire can be relentless.
I wish we had a "wow!" emoji now.
Charcat
One of the Patsy's
The air here (Boise/Meridian, Idaho area) is at Code Red level right now. No outdoor activities at schools, etc., and sports activities such as football games have been canceled. It is difficult to breathe outside. The sun in the mornings and evenings is a brilliant red. Hate it--we had so much smoke last year, but this year is worse.
By the way, Multnomah Falls area has burned as well.
http://www.ktvb.com/news/local/smoke-from-fires-pushes-air-quality-into-unhealthy-range/471115646
By the way, Multnomah Falls area has burned as well.
http://www.ktvb.com/news/local/smoke-from-fires-pushes-air-quality-into-unhealthy-range/471115646
So sad.
WOW....unreal
EatTheRich
President
Same here (Missoula, MT) ... air has been "unhealthy" all but 2 days for a month or so ... yesterday pushed past "very unhealthy" into "hazardous" before dipping back down to "unhealthy" by afternoon. In nearby Seeley Lake it's been "hazardous" for weeks.
Charcat
One of the Patsy's
I know....Montana is the worst, but we have had the "hazardous" in Northern Idaho for the past couple of days, too.
Charcat
One of the Patsy's
We've graduated to the Purple category now...."very unhealthy."
EatTheRich
President
It only got that bad here for a little bit ... highs in the 80s the last few days vs. over 100 over the long weekend so that helped a bit ... plus it's been a bit windy, which has fueled the fires of course, but at least it pushed some of the smoke out of the valley.
I read that smoke had drifted at least as far as Oklahoma.
So what are we looking at here?
1. Climate change ... global warming means longer sustained periods of heat, more wind, and more frequent thuunderstorms which spark fires. It also means an increasing frequency of rain as opposed to snow which means drier overall conditions. It does mean heavier rain showers, which will help when they come, but it seems that's not enough to compensate for these other things.
2. Federal neglect ... for the first couple days of the fire season, Washington for the first time ever provided no funds for fire suppression ... I assume this reflects a combination of belt-tightening and related ideological demands for state self-reliance.They did reverse themselves, but only after fires blew up that might have been suppressed.
3. Poor forest management. Decades of extremely aggressive fire suppression in areas that had previously adapted to regular firen combined with intense logging particularly of the biggest trees, left forests covered with dry fuel ... needles, grass, and tree bark ... that smolders just like campfire tinder while creating avenues for oxygen that would otherwise be blocked by dense trees to get in. There's a myth that more logging would ameliorate the problem, but forest ecologists, silviculturists, and fire experts all say the only logging that would help would be removal of small trees and shrubs and dead plant material ... which is unprofitable. Now I think you can make the case that we should log those trees instead of just letting them burn anyway, especially if (and I don't know whether this is true) that means less carbon combustion when the forest does burn. But that does mean more fire.
4. Nature. Fire's been a fact of life around these parts for millennia, and air pollution tends to settle in cool valleys like ours. It sucks, but that's part of the price of living here.
