2020 Online fire and smoke maps

[Tricia]

Coincidently, this memory came up on my FB page.
I would love having the fire conditions from 7 years ago in place of our current fire conditions.

 

[Wendy]

here's from this AM. They were taken less than a 1/4 mile from each other. Obviously, we dont have snow now . More smoke has come into the valley since this AM. View attachment 108600 View attachment 108601

I know smoky air smells gross and makes it hard to breathe, so I’m prefacing this by saying I am not minimizing this AT ALL....but when I look at that top picture, it reminds me of a typical summer day’s skies in PA/NJ. LOL.

We are casually perusing homes in NM for retirement, and I’m careful to stay away from wooded areas: fire danger. However, it is impossible to escape traveling smoke from a large fire.

 

[Wendy]

Coincidently, this memory came up on my FB page.
I would love having the fire conditions from 7 years ago in place of our current fire conditions.
View attachment 108602

I think the concept of “crazy” is changing each year, unfortunately.
I hope your air quality improves soon.

 

[Ron]

.but when I look at that top picture, it reminds me of a typical summer day’s skies in PA/NJ. LOL.

I used to live in northwestern western NJ along the PA border and no, it does not look like that. NJ and PA share a very long border.

 

[AmyPJ]

It’s bad in Utah, but I can’t imagine what it’s like in CA. I’ve avoided biking until today.

 

[luliski]

It’s bad in Utah, but I can’t imagine what it’s like in CA. I’ve avoided biking until today.
View attachment 108624

My daughter has been saying they’re getting smoke from California in Salt Lake City.
This is looking west (towards the LNU complex fire) from Davis, on Tuesday. Normally you’d see the Coast Range. This was around sunset, so the orange is the sun, not flames.

 

[Tricia]

It’s bad in Utah, but I can’t imagine what it’s like in CA. I’ve avoided biking until today.
View attachment 108624

Hey... you can see the ridgeline.
We can't see the ridge on the other side of Reno.
Not that its any consolation....smoke is smoke. Air quality can make a huge difference in day to day.
Normally we can see downtown Reno and the mountains on the other side
No hiking or biking for the foreseeable future.

 

[SSSdave]

Smoky outside now mid afternoon. Was fine from midnight to late this morning then the smoke moved in again. Looks like hazy dirty overcast this pm that is a mix of smoke and actual clouds from thunderstorms over the ocean that have been moving north. Looks like we might get some rain and big sparks about 6pm. Fortunately the awful heat wave is over and despite not having AC (broken), my unit is only up to 78F currently after being 69F at sunrise. Am occasionally running an old Bionaire F-150S HEPA air purifier that works well. Have been processing image files and completed about 40 over the last couple weeks working several hours each day on the backlog from 2 backpacking trips, so don't need to go outside.

The below forecast model smoke map may be useful to predict where smoke will be over 3 day 72 hour periods. Note the indicated smoke may not be at the surface but higher rather above. Have set it for Western US and Latest Runs. On the legend at upper right, mouse select the pause button to stop the time movement. Move the bar to the current time. Select the Run arrow and it will loop. Currently shows what we've experienced last couple days is expected to continue.

WebSky v2

tools.airfire.org

This link below is our local air quality chart by the hour that shows how greatly it varies each day and unlike the smoke map above is at the surface. Note that has much to do with being adjacent to the vast Pacific Ocean that is super clean air and tends to cause much variability daily in wind direction. Have set the mode to PM2.5 fine particulate matter, date 8/23. 100-150ppm is unhealthy and we are likely at that low en current currently with visibility a few miles. One brother that lives in Pleasanton shows it was 326 there at 1pm today while down to 31 just after midnight when they had a sea breeze.:

BAAQMD - Air Quality Data

www.baaqmd.gov

 

[SkiMore]

This has me so sad of the magnitude once you zoom in to see all the individual dots versus just the concept of a shaded in area

It is not just Big Basin, but the fire is over all the adjacent parks / open space. Many administered by different orgs but all joined to preserve these redwood areas. I go down to these forests almost every weekend in the summer.
In one park, there is an educational nature trail with the signs for kids talking explaining how fires are a part of redwood forest ecology and a cycle. While true that the forest should come back; the thing to note is it is on a completely different timescale than for humans. The sign said the last major fire in that park was 300 years ago. So assuming we still preserve the area and even execute some post disaster efforts to stabilize, it'll still be well after our lifetimes before these forests get back to what they were like before the fire.

It also makes me feel so helpless, that my (small) efforts to pack out my apple cores and orange peels and stay on the trail and all the other rules to keep the park nice, are rendered so pointless in comparison to this.
View attachment 108579

This makes me sad too. I grew up in the redwoods, just on the other side of the hill on the northern edge of the fire. We went to these adjacent parks, and I went to summer camps as a kid and was a camp counselor as a teen in those same parks. I've been watching this closely and it looks like they are finally getting some control over this CZU fire.

 

[Tricia]

Here's an interesting article from the SF Gate

'I am afraid': Tahoe emergency crews respond to near-daily illegal campfires

Even as wildfires burned across the state of California, as smoke saturated the sky in...

www.sfgate.com

I'm not on the bandwagon of telling tourists to go home and I don't like the sentiment that "locals" are disgruntled with people from the bay area. But this is troubling. Mostly I think its people (in general, not visitors) who think nothing bad will happen to them or only other people make terrible mistakes.

 

[Wendy]

Here's an interesting article from the SF Gate

'I am afraid': Tahoe emergency crews respond to near-daily illegal campfires

Even as wildfires burned across the state of California, as smoke saturated the sky in...

www.sfgate.com

I'm not on the bandwagon of telling tourists to go home and I don't like the sentiment that "locals" are disgruntled with people from the bay area. But this is troubling. Mostly I think its people (in general, not visitors) who think nothing bad will happen to them or only other people make terrible mistakes.

Campfires in CA now is just dumb and irresponsible. By now, you’d think people, from anywhere, would know better. But I guess, yeah, people tend to think THEY will be safe and not cause any harm.

These people weren’t tourists:
California wildfires: Gender reveal party blamed for fire https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54053811

 

[Tricia]

Campfires in CA now is just dumb and irresponsible. By now, you’d think people, from anywhere, would know better. But I guess, yeah, people tend to think THEY will be safe and not cause any harm.

These people weren’t tourists:
California wildfires: Gender reveal party blamed for fire https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54053811

I saw that gender reveal party fail on the news this morning. Crazy!!!

 

[coskigirl]

The smoke got really bad here yesterday including falling ash. It isn't quite as bad right now but I can smell the fire still. My eyes are irritated and my sinuses are raging. Tomorrow's precip and cooler temps cannot come soon enough. I've also been happy to see that the low temps and possible precip are now predicted for the next 3 days.

 

[luliski]

And now this:

Massive forest closures and restrictions announced for California

Campgrounds in all the state's national forests will close, and other prohibitions are being put in place, due to fire danger. Many Southern California forests are being shut down completely.

www.actionnewsnow.com

I was hoping to get a few more backpacking trips in this summer and fall.

 

[Bad Bob]

They just issued emergency evacuation orders for an area approximately 20 miles west of Spokane, and a LOT closer to Fairchild AFB. Don't know the scale of the fire but we had 50 mph winds here a little earlier.

 

[Plai]

And now this:

Massive forest closures and restrictions announced for California

Campgrounds in all the state's national forests will close, and other prohibitions are being put in place, due to fire danger. Many Southern California forests are being shut down completely.

www.actionnewsnow.com

I was hoping to get a few more backpacking trips in this summer and fall.

That just killed a weekend fishing day trip. The price we pay for selfishness. @#!*

 

[Tricia]

And now this:

Massive forest closures and restrictions announced for California

Campgrounds in all the state's national forests will close, and other prohibitions are being put in place, due to fire danger. Many Southern California forests are being shut down completely.

www.actionnewsnow.com

I was hoping to get a few more backpacking trips in this summer and fall.

I dread the thought that people will start flocking to Nevada, overwhelming the over stressed public lands.
I don't want to be that person who tells tourists to say away, but this is getting scarier than it already was.

 

[luliski]

I dread the thought that people will start flocking to Nevada, overwhelming the over stressed public lands.
I don't want to be that person who tells tourists to say away, but this is getting scarier than it already was.

Sorry, I just suggested the Ruby Crest trail to someone who had been planning to hike the High Sierra trail in California. It is shocking how many people are out roaming the "wild."

 

[luliski]

That just killed a weekend fishing day trip. The price we pay for selfishness. @#!*

I know. Getting out hiking and backpacking has brought me peace this summer. Most of the fires were caused by lightning strikes, though, so why "selfishness?"

 

[Tricia]

Sorry, I just suggested the Ruby Crest trail to someone who had been planning to hike the High Sierra trail in California. It is shocking how many people are out roaming the "wild."

No apologies necessary.
Were sticking close to home.
I just hope everyone respects Mother Nature