Orange Tinted Smoke

There is a huge wildfire burning near the area I live, and the gray smoke coming from it is not only a reminder of the danger that comes to my area each summer with the wildfires, but is also the creator of some fairly strange looking mornings and evenings.

Unlike a cloudy day, where the thick, gray clouds will block out the sun for a muted day where colors can pop against the cool background, the voluminous smoke creates a film for the sun to filter through.  This, aside from being a health hazard, gives us fire-light scattered across every object in sight.

The sun turns red, the blue morning sky is hidden behind the smoke.  We wake to find our quilts and walls and floors bright orange, an orange so bright, in fact, that the camera can't pick up on it properly to show you how vivid it really is.  Outside everything looks oversaturated, and you can hold your hand up in some spots to see beams of light shinning through the smoke, much like you would see the light shinning through thick clouds of dust in an old room.

It really is sort of pretty, but the destruction of the fire is not worth the nice colors it creates.  Houses have been lost, roads shut down, people evacuated from their homes.  The amount of smoke in the air is, as I mentioned before, a health hazard.  Despite the nice summer temperatures, we can't have our windows open, least the smoke fills our house, too.  It makes for summer days spent inside, instead out enjoying the sun like we might be otherwise.

The mornings are orange, and the days a pale yellow with bright gray tinted skies.  But the evenings have purple in their skies.  Gray tinted yellows, teals, and sometimes even greens accompany the dusty purples when the red sun sets.  These sunsets will have to be left to your imagination, though, because the camera sensors fail me once again in not being able to pick up on what the colors really look like.

Despite the color show it gives us, I hope the fire is put out soon.  Even after it is, the smoke may hang around for a while after it, but perhaps we might still get to spend our last few summer days outside, like we should be.  More importantly, let's hope no more houses are lost before it finally burns out and leaves us.

Em