Replies

I have family in upstate Pennsylvania - they’ve never seen anything like this - one is on oxygen, several have asthma and allergies, which will be set off by the smoky air.

We Californians have lots of experience with smoke from wildfires - I remember going out to my backyard and I thought the fog had rolled in, even though it was high summer - it turned out to be smoke from a wildfire that was miles and miles away. The ash will settle on everything - it WILL ruin the paint on your car. Don’t try to hose it off from your driveway or walkways, it turns to cement, the ash needs to be swept up.

I told my relatives to go to the nearest Home Depot and get air purifiers for their home - if there were any left, which I doubt, if not go to Amazon, you will need those. Stay inside as much as possible and wear masks outdoors.

This is what we do.

"We Californians have lots of experience with smoke from wildfires"

Having lived in CA for 50 years (and summers in Northern Idaho the past five years), I know smoke well. Up until maybe 20 years ago, there was no such thing as wildfire smoke in the Bay Area. Forests were well managed and fires were quickly contained. Now smoke is a frequent occurrence thanks to ultra-liberal one-party rule.

Here in North Idaho, we have good years and bad years with lots of Canadian smoke blowing south from BC and Alberta (plus a lot of native smoke from OR, ID, WA, and MT). A couple years ago, it was really bad. But, so far this year, almost NO smoke! Just beautiful clear blue skies.

Here's an interesting historical bit of info. Wherever you travel or hike in the Inland Northwest, you see evidence and reminders of the Great Fire of 1910. The sheer size and speed of this fire beggars the imagination.

The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the Big Blowup, the Big Burn, or the Devil's Broom fire) was a wildfire in the Inland Northwest region of the United States that burned three million acres (4,700 sq miles!) in North Idaho and Western Montana, with extensions into Eastern Washington and Southeast British Columbia, in the summer of 1910. The area burned included large parts of the Bitterroot, Cabinet, Clearwater, Coeur d'Alene, Flathead, Kaniksu, Kootenai, Lewis and Clark, Lolo, and St. Joe national forests.
The fire burned over two days on the weekend of August 20–21, after strong winds caused numerous smaller fires to combine into a firestorm of unprecedented size. It killed 87 people, mostly firefighters, destroyed numerous manmade structures, including several entire towns, and burned more than three million acres of forest with an estimated billion dollars' worth of timber lost. It is believed to be the largest, although not the deadliest, forest fire in U.S. history. The extensive burned area was approximately the size of the state of Connecticut.

It's interesting that the fire burned itself out in a few days.

Note that this was many decades before "climate change" was even thought of.

Near Wallace, Idaho, the "Pulaski Tunnel Trail" traces part of the route that Edward Pulaski’s crew followed during their escape from the 1910 fires. The trail’s two-mile course brings hikers to an overlook across the creek from the Nicholson mine entrance - better known as the Pulaski Tunnel. During a major forest fire in North Idaho in the late summer of 1910, “Big Ed” Pulaski’s firefighting crew got caught in the middle of the fire storm. Pulaski saved all but six of his 45-man firefighting crew, by forcing a march to the entrance of the nearby mine, hiding his crew inside, and holding them at gun point until the fire had abated. The route of this famous escape in 1910, is now an historical trail with interpretive signs along the way. You can still see charred stumps and trees from that fire!