Thursday, May 18, 2023

Fires

Again, today, the skies over the Washington metropolitan area are ashen with smoke.  

A veil of haze, cast from horizon to horizon, through which the sun glows pale and muted.  It made for a wan sunrise as I walked the dog this morning, the sky flattened and featureless. 

It's not a local event.  The wildfires that are producing this smoke are from Canada.  Not nearby Canada, either.  From Alberta, Canada. 

Americans are kind of oblivious to our neighbors in the Great White North, so saying it's "from Alberta" means little.  Al-whatt-a?  Alberta isn't Montreal.  It's not East Coast-ish.  Meaning, hundreds of miles north of Montana and Washington state. Two thousand three hundred miles from the mid Atlantic. 

These are not small fires.