Rolling Western U.S. Is On Fire / Wildfires Thread

Is it even worth bothering with a surgical mask, as some are doing?

I don't think so. I think you need at least an N95 to filter out particulates?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/us/masks-wildfire-smoke-air-quality.html

Went out to get groceries just now (picked the wrong time but I've been sick all week) and felt like the dog in the "This is fine" cartoon.

it's pretty weird to watch the rest of the country experience our Oregon summer world, been like this on and off here for 4-5 years now

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Wednesday, June 7, 2023 6:36 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i wouldn't wish smokey air on anyone, but yeah, from a western pov it's a little jarring to see "this sucks baaad" in 2023. not like in some perverse bragging tone or anything. just a note that many parts of the country that don't have many posters to this message board have been living this reality for quite some time. my sympathies to everyone dealing with this right now. the good news is weather patterns change and the smoke always moves somewhere else. then moves back to you. then gets worse next year.

i'm super glad we'll see some media hand-wringing and rationalization about it in the coming weeks though.

it does suck bad

I’m in the Baltimore area. This has happened before, not pretty rarely in my memory.

(The only other time I remember it was in the Austin area a decade or so back when the city of Bastrop was on fire for weeks.)

I moved to Montreal from Oregon 9 years ago. So, I left before the real bad summers started, but I did experience fires while there, including waking up on vacation in Bend one morning to the surreal sight of midsummer snow that I realized after a confused minute was falling ash. There have also been plenty of wildfires in Quebec before this year. What's freaking me out is that it's only June

i've seen a fair number of westerners with thoughts along the same lines as sleeve/map and i get it, but . . . this *hasn't* happened in nyc before. (james redd could only compare it to 9/11!)

i mean, if the west coast of the usa gets hit by a hurricane sometime, that too will be very noteworthy despite the southeast getting several every summer

I suppose maybe I could have should have lowballed and compared it to that one time NJ sent us some foul-smelling air.

Yeah, FW2020 was rough. 5 of the 10 worst wildfires in the history of California (and Oregon wasn't much better).

Not only were we in COVID lockdown but also choking on dense wildfire smoke for close to 3 months. Even our indoor AQI readings were in the triple digits. Those of us with kids dealing with at-home everything and then no more going outside for fresh air made things extremely unmanageable.

https://i.imgur.com/WsuDF4n.jpg

Good luck East Coasters.

(no filter on the pic, white-balanced to the interior lighting)

It makes me think of there Las Vegas set scenes of Blade Runner 2049.

ok fine i will admit to experiencing a ~tiny~ bit of schadenfreude after spending many many years slowly accepting that smoke = summer in northern california

but also: i am v sorry this is happening to you all, it super sucks & i know firsthand it becomes very depressing + scary very quickly. stay safe! stay indoors!

Thanks. Definitely some disturbing AQIs over here in Queens, some very unhealthy and even hazardous.

veg otm

oh in case anyone needs indoor filters:

https://deohs.washington.edu/edge/blog/how-make-box-fan-filter-clean-indoor-air-smoke

i pulled up the purple air map for nyc. jfc, that is worse than what we had in norther california in 2020 when everything turned orange and freaky.

stay safe y’all :-(

incredible photo, Steve

There have also been plenty of wildfires in Quebec before this year. What's freaking me out is that it's only June

I have lived in SF for most of my life, and September 9th, 2020, dubbed "orange skies day", will always be a day I remember, it was a very dim orange twilight all day and even the birds didn't know how to respond, it was freaky. Steve Shasta's photo captures it

I think the particulate matter AQI score in NY today was maybe even higher though

Yeah, that day was incredibly eerie but it was nowhere near one of the worst air quality days that year. Iirc, the orange skies were a result of a cloud layer creating a buffer between the city and most of the particulate.

welp

i've seen a fair number of westerners with thoughts along the same lines as sleeve/map and i get it, but . . . this *hasn't* happened in nyc before. (james redd could only compare it to 9/11!)

i mean, if the west coast of the usa gets hit by a hurricane sometime, that too will be very noteworthy despite the southeast getting several every summer

― mookieproof, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 4:31 PM (two months ago)

yup. everything is on fire around us right now as well.

over 1000 fires in Canada

https://data.statesmanjournal.com/fires/

Photo of a hurt and angry planet

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/09/16/multimedia/18californiatoday-hilary/18californiatoday-hilary-articleLarge.jpg

Nothing really close to me at the moment; being basically on the shore of a giant lake must keep the ground pretty well irrigated, I guess. But I'm keeping an eye on the map.

https://www.mtfireinfo.org/pages/current-fire-info

Quebec man who blamed wildfires on government pleads guilty to setting 14 fires

A Quebec man who posted conspiracy theories online that forest fires were being deliberately set by the government has pleaded guilty to starting a series of fires himself that forced hundreds of people from their homes.

Nice misdirection dude