L.A. Wildfires

[brewcrew00]

We live in Boulder, CO first off, and every morning I take our dogs out before I start my day. Today however, I look down the street and I couldn't see the mountains! The "iconic" Flatirons have disappeared. It smelled so strong like smoke, I thought we had our first fire of the year here on the Front Range. Come to find out, the smoke is drifting in from the CA fires! This is crazy, not sure if anyone has seen the pictures but take a look, this thing is huge!

[RayKingsForemanGrill]

Luckily, the fires' westward progress has been stopped, otherwise we'd be in trouble (we live in Newhall, just west of where the fire is). It's shocking how big the fire is. The wind has shifted towards us, so it is orange with haze and I even noticed ash falling on us today. In reality, we are out of reach (the fire would have to jump a freeway - they aren't going to let that happen). My mom has called each day however to check on us. We just moved here from Glendale (where the fire started). Today I have to drive there and my entire drive will be bordered out my drivers' side window with the fire and haze...

[dadofandrew]

Back when I lived in the Cities, it was very foggy one day on the way to work...turns out, the "fog" was smoke from Montana fires. Wind makes for interesting scenes.

[pitchleague]

yep, we're getting the smoke here in NW Arizona, too. They even kept all student indoors yesterday (no recess) due to the poor air quality.

[owbc]

The fire near LA is big but there are also some in Nevada and Utah. See this recent satellite image.

 

A few times I have seen red dirt on my car here in Wisconsin after a light rain. Generally, this can be traced back to a dust storm in New Mexico or Texas that got pulled into the jet stream. Dust/smoke/pollutants can also travel across oceans. Layers of dirt in the Southeast have been traced to the Sahara desert and high levels of Mercury and other pollutants in California are due to increased pollution in China.