Smoke smoke everywhere

[tgtaylor]

Shot that with the Canon G9 P&S with the lens zoomed out as it would go while assuming the stereotypical digital photography pose with the camera held high at arms length above my head. I had the camera on “automatic” but I remember seeing 1/500 second and it says that f4.8 is the maximum aperture. Considering that I don't care for it as I do with my film cameras – it's usually kept in a kitchen drawer and even for weeks on end in the car's arm rest – its been a remarkably reliable camera since I purchased it new back in 2007. The current AQI in my neighborhood is 272 and rising but luckily I bought a Honeywell HEPA ait purifier a couple of months back and the current AQI in the apartment is fluctuates between 25 and 30 with all the windows and patio door closed (double pane) and on the “turbo” setting. Keeping the outside air out causes the indoor CO2 level to rise but at lease the outside temperature has been in the upper 50's to 70's for the past two days and not into the tripple digits that it was – 106 on Monday or Tuesday.

Thomas

[Andrew O'Neill]

....aaaaaaand the smoke is back again, along with an invasion of your moths!!

[Bernice Loui]

Bernice

[Tin Can]

Blood-hungry, hurricane-fuelled mosquito swarms killing livestock in Louisiana

Africa already had locusts

[Drew Wiley]

Just wait until vast Dustbowl-like storms begin anew in the middle part of the country. No place to hide. But bugs? - mosquitos and biting flies are now the no.1 cause of certain moose herds in the lower 48 and adjacent Canada having trouble maintaining their population, which in turn is a symptom of climate-change-related longer summers and warmer winters. And caribou herds in the arctic have their movements dictated by where the bugs are and aren't, because flies and mosquitos weaken many of them too. This might well be the first year in the past 40 that I don't get in a summer backpack trip due to delaying it until mosquito season was over, and now having to factor fire hazard instead. Both make you run.

[Vaughn]

Another day of thick fog and smoke, temps mid-60s...we are the lucky ones around here. Major evacuations underway within the county, with the State's largest wildfire of record approaching the county from the southeast, and fires in the northeastern part of the county. The coast here is the local place of refuge, with fairgrounds and other facilities starting to fill with refugees. Shelters for animals (pets and large animals) have also been set-up.

Some fires in the northern county are unstaffed, with resources (fire crews, tankers, air support) unavailable. What is available are trying to save towns, other structures and cultural sites of importance.

[tgtaylor]

As of Friday morning, some 3.1 million acres — the equivalent of four Rhode Islands — have been torched this year by a seemingly unending parade of fires, according to Cal Fire. With several of the largest blazes at less than 25-percent containment, that total was certain to rise - According to SF Gate. The noon news said that was 3% of California. The CO2 concentration rose to 1597 - unhealthy range- so this evening I will have to open the windows to bring it back down. That will let in the unhealthy air from the outside but I am counting on the air purifier to clean it up. I was surprised to read that there were 500,000 evacuations in Oregon with more coming.

Thomas

[Drew Wiley]

Portland is said to have even worse air quality than here at the moment, and the big fire south of there is badly understaffed. They even had their command center burn down. Calif. fatalities are mainly in the burn adjacent to where the deadly Paradise Fire of two years ago was. Washington had more acreage burn in a single day than in a typical year. The Creek Fire upcanyon from my home town area is now on record as the fastest moving fire ever in this country, with the largest thermocumulus cloud ever recorded in this country too. It's mainly moving south toward the lower Kings drainage; but they're still evacuating people even to the north and west due to potential wind shift. One of my friends attempting the High Route reached the Muir Trail north of Selden Pass and presumably hiked out to Edison Lk, and if so, was helicoptered to Fresno where he called from. The more experienced one is going to try to reach Red's Mdw and exit to Mammoth; but I don't know by which route yet, so am still a bit anxious, since the wind might shift east in a few days, carrying this smoke with it.

[tgtaylor]

My friend and I were down in Tehipite Valley for a week. We come out yesterday(Thursday) a day early because we knew there had to be a major fire somewhere due to the falling ash in Tehipite Valley. Our cars were parked at Rancheria Trailhead, and covered in ash. We drove out to Shaver Lake, and we were told there by a Fresno County Sheriff about what had happened since we had left civilization. We did not require rescue, and walked out on our own up and out on one of the most difficult trails in the Sierra. It was eerie and sad driving down Hwy 168 yesterday afternoon, to say the least. I guess I am just missing something, but I don’t understand why JMT hikers didn’t just continue hiking until they got to Whitney Portal. ?We never considered calling for a rescue even though I carry a Garmin In Reach satellite device.

[Drew Wiley]

There were two separate fires to the south causing terrible smoke in Kern Can and spilling over the top into Owens Valley. A small one along Rattlesnake Cr in Golden Trout Wilderness south of Mineral Kings. About 15 backpackers were helicopter rescued out of there. But then a huge fire erupted still further south lower down. I gave up on my own backpack plans and defaulted to a car camping trip where the air was clean. But I did camp one night at Onion Valley below Kearsarge Pass, and couldn't believe the sheer quantity of cars in the trailhead parking lot. The Muir Trail attracts a lot of naive neophytes, who were headed toward the pass while experienced hikers were fleeing out as fast as they could. I can't imagine hiking out of the summer heat of Tehipite under smoky conditions. I did a hundred mile round trip up above there a couple years ago in Sept, but the issue on that trip was blizzards. I'm don't tolerate heat well anymore, and the last time I hiked up from the bottom of Kings Can, I started uphill at 3AM to avoid the worst heat.