Fire, fire on the mountain

The valley is burning. Or rather, a lot of it is. 800 homes have been destroyed and more than 50,000 people are displaced from their homes. We are fortunate that we live on the other side of the valley. We can see the fires from our street, but we aren't in any immediate danger, unless we do something crazy like, say, breathe.

The air quality is terrible. Yesterday I went for a run in Freyman's canyon and could see the smoke billowing from the mountains from my run. My lungs were stinging and I came home with a headache.

Today it has gotten worse. I have woken up to a blue sky nearly every day since we moved here. Today the weather forecast called for another hot and sunny day in the valley. Instead it stayed cool and the sun was hidden from the smoke. We decided to venture to Malibu for a breath of fresh ocean air. The photo I posted here is from the beach, where it stayed in the mid-seventies on a day that was forecast to be 89 degrees. The red sun looked eerily like it should have been setting, yet it was high in the sky at 1 o'clock. When we returned home, the air looked more smoky than it had when we left.

Last night, we had a dinner party and had a small fire in the outdoor fire pit to stay warmer on a cool November evening. We joked because the wind seemed to follow one friend and he kept having to breathe in smoke. Today it's as if we are all on the bad end of a bonfire, breathing in the smoky air.

My thoughts are with the people who lost their homes and with the firefighters, who hopefully will get the fires under control so we can all breathe again.