Dear California, have you always been on fire?

The smoke is REALLY bad today at my house. My eyes are itching from it. When I was out and about this morning, lots of people wearing dust masks
I can only imagine.

I was talking with an old buddy that I hadn't seen in years about a month ago when I was at a friend's wedding and found that he moved to Oregon. I asked him how he liked it and commented about how it was probably beautiful in the fall, but he said that the area he was in was just smokey all the time from the California fires. =(

I can only imagine having to deal with that much smoke in the air every day.
 
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The smoke is REALLY bad today at my house. My eyes are itching from it. When I was out and about this morning, lots of people wearing dust masks

That's how it was up here in Oregon during the Summer. One month of horrible smoke and haze. We didn't even want to leave the house. And this wasn't really even fires from Canada! It was all the smoke blowing down from B.C., and up from California!
 
We have family in southern Oregon. When Redding was up in flames and we were headed to OR, going over the Shasta Lake bridge. Couldn’t see the lake at all. Trees were still burning along the highway

Last couple few years, between CA and OR, it’s been absolutely horrible


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My MIL got evacuated from her home near Grants Pass a couple months ago


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That’s not cloud cover :(


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We have family in southern Oregon. When Redding was up in flames and we were headed to OR, going over the Shasta Lake bridge. Couldn’t see the lake at all. Trees were still burning along the highway

Last couple few years, between CA and OR, it’s been absolutely horrible


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Which is horrible, because Oregon is such a beautiful place, as is Northern California. The smoke from the fires this year ruined half the summer for us, which is short enough as it is.
 
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I wonder how many spotted owls were saved when 500,000+ acres of Mendocino National Forest burned to the ground? It's ok folks, all that smoke polluting the atmosphere won't hurt anything. It's ok, we'll just blame jeepers for all the carbon emissions our jeeps exude.
 
All the schools around here have suspended any outdoor PE classes for the week


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I'm sure PE will be suspended for more than a week.

Something really needs to be done about this forest fire bullshit, I'm telling you...
 
Unfortunately it was just a matter of time. Poor forest management, drought, enviromentalist demands, more people living in the hills, literally tons of fuel covering the ground, all add up to the devastation we are seeing.
Global Warming is the answer to this problem. Can't deny facts. The entire world doesn't give a rats a** about the right and left side. It only cares about how sh**ty we treat it.
 
California wild fires go back forever. I remember them in the '60s. Difference today is how populated the rural areas are. And how they keep building homes with kindling for roofing. Definitely time to change the building codes. Might also be a problem with ignorant people compared to those living rural 50 years ago.

And then there is the science behind global warming.
 
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In BC it is not the tree huggers causing the increased fire risk, it is how we manage logging and replanting and waste. Entire forests are replaced with one species so in 40 years when they return, the logging is easier, no mixed growth just clear cut it all. Mixed forests build resilience to wildfire, disease, drought. And mixed forests can recover from wildfire and disease because a lot of the forest survives. One of the biggest activities in BC is clearing out the dead fall around communities. And it is getting lots of government funding. FireSmart is another government funded initiative to reduce risk around homes, rural and urban. We had some people from California thru Nakusp last summer who picked up our FireSmart Brochure.... and a few t-shirts.
 
2 years ago Fort McMurray was evacuated. 66,000 people leaving town on one highway in a day. Looking back at the homes which survived tells the story. Wood deck attached to the house, gone. Junipers, gardens, shrubs under the eaves, gone. Open carport, gone. The homes which survived had no dead dry grass next to the house to draw the fire near. Either well watered lawn or gravel, concrete, pavers all around the house. And if there were trees close by, they were far enough away that if you chopped them down, they could not hit the house. Giant cedar hanging over the house. gone.
 
Most of the risk in California is how they build. Change the building codes. Design communities to be fire smart. Change what we expect for vegitation, gardens near our homes. Change where we park, store firewood, quads, gasoline. Everything might survive a wildfire. Keep rebuilding like it used to be because insurance is paying the bill. Get ready to be homeless next year.
 
The skies up here in Oregon today are nasty and hazy from the California smoke.
 
I seen the news last night and it said the smoke made it almost to the east! I was surprised that smoke can travel so many miles.

That is surprising, I agree. I'm really getting tired of California's smoke going everywhere. We dealt with this for months during the Summer up here as well.