Wildfires 2015

All photos in this post by Jim Bowering CC-BY-SA

It’s wildfire season here, and this year is particularly bad. We’ve had evacuations in my town, but it’s even worse south of the border in the United States. Unfortunately, we’ve had a south wind for the last few days, so all the smoke is coming up here. The above photo shows the view from my dining room window, and that’s what I see these days while having dinner. If you look closely you can almost see the other side of the valley, which I estimate to be about a kilometer away.

This shot is the same time. It shows up the distant hills a little better. To the eye, the Sun was actually a deep ruby red, but my camera couldn’t capture it.

This is the next day. I tried a different setting on the camera and it got a little closer, but still no ruby. You can see that the visibility has improved and you can make out the hills easily.

Almost got it, but I obviously need a better camera and more talent. I was able to stare directly at the Sun with no discomfort.

Yesterday morning I gave it a try with the “Sunrise” setting. Not bad, but I assure you the sky was not that color.-) Look closely again and you will see a hint of the east side of the valley. And the smoke was thin enough overhead to show that contrail.

Looking east again this morning, with the “Sunset” setting. The sky is closer to its actual color, but the Sun is still too yellow. The visibility is improving, with the eastern hills making a better showing. Also the aircraft fighting the fires are allowed to fly again, having been grounded by low visibility.

Looking east on my morning walk. I made sure to walk slowly, to keep the inhalation of “particulates” to a minimum. It’s good to get out, though. I’ve been staying in with all the doors and windows sealed, and definitely not doing any strenuous work in the yard. I used to fight these fires, with the heat on my skin and the smoke in my lungs, but that was back when I was young and invincible.-)

Looking forward to a nice rainy day,

rjb

PS, WordPress seems to be randomly failing to display images lately. I can see no reason why one of these should be treated differently from the others. Oh well. Waiting and hoping for an update to fix it.

rjb

PPS, I think I fixed the non-displaying images. I disabled “Photon,” which uploads the images to a WordPress server and serves them from there.

rjb