The "Siskiyou Complex" (another link here) and "Shasta-Trinity Complex" are the two most contributing to our hazy skies. We haven't seen Mt. Shasta in awhile. The sun is a deep red every morning and evening. The acrid smell in the air and billowing clouds the first few days kept flashing vivid memories through my mind from my childhood growing up on the edge of the Los Padres National Forest many miles south of here where another wildfire is also raging away right now. Bomber planes (water/flame retardant planes) helicopters, ash falling from the sky, walking with our dog on her leash thinking of what things I'd get from our house if we had to evacuate. After it was all over, driving by the burned hillsides just a few miles down the road from us. Whenever we'd see the enormous billowing black clouds with tinges of orangey grey we knew another fire was raging away. Ironically enough, we lived "next door"/adjacent to the local forestry/CDF station so we felt like there was a certain measure of safety there! We could hear the radio calls from down the way and I'm sure my parents cued in to those more then we did.
It's been an interesting reality check, that's for sure. Since moving here I'm constantly having flashbacks to my early childhood: wildflowers and weeds along the road, a certain view of the hillsides, smells in the air, a manzanita shrub, lizards darting under a rock, scrub oak slanting down the hillsides. Not sure what to make of it all the time. So I just remember, and make a note of it.
So, Happy Independence Day! Be careful with your fireworks. Around the state there will be a lot of canceled shows from what I hear. But the reality is, the larger shows sponsored and put on by local fire stations are much safer than people setting them off in their own driveways. Let's hope for the best!
3 comments:
AAAH! Crazy smokey times! That picture was quite the illustration.
That would just make me feel nervous, I think
My folks were out in Fairfield for my brother's graduation and reported the same thing-smoky skies. I just finished reading the Nat Geo cover story about the fires and the editor's note told about growing up in Southern Oregon and the fires there. Places are just powerful memory triggers. I loved the description of the details that bring things back for you.
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