All around me in Washington State and Oregon, there are wildfires burning.
The biggest one is about 3 hours away from me by car and is estimated to span 18,000 acres, though firefighters think it’s bigger than that. They’re saying this may be the biggest wildfire the state has ever seen.
The air quality reporting system here sucks. The air quality team says it’s “Unsafe for Sensitive Groups”. I’m not entirely sure how they know since only one of their air quality monitors is actually working. The others are all turned off or busted. What I can tell you is that I’m not an asthmatic. I don’t suffer from migraines. I just have seasonal allergies and my eyes itch and my head aches and my nose runs when I stand outside, all of these are reasons why I don’t go camping. I can’t stand to be around wood smoke for too long. So, this morning I’m feeling pretty bad because the air quality here is probably worse than just “unsafe for sensitive groups”. I can’t stand outside long enough to take pictures of the haze.
The whole county smells like a campfire.
After bringing the dog inside from reading her newspaper this morning, I was feeling bad and I was thinking about how miserable I was, and then I realized that the news reported this morning that people are fearing for their lives and losing their homes and how selfish is it of me to be moping around, complaining about how bad I feel, when whole towns are being evacuated? I’m uncomfortable. I can pop a pill and feel better. I can take steps to alleviate my discomfort. These people though, they’re so scared and they’re losing their homes and their towns.
Where ever you are I’m so sorry for what you’re going through and I’m praying for rain. No thunderstorms, just rain.
Sure, it benefits my sinuses but I also have no idea how firefighters are going to control this blaze without it. If you’ve got five minutes, pray to God, send the thoughts out into the universe, do it however you’re going to do it but please send some hopeful energy that we’re going to get some rain to put a stop to this, because there’s none in the forecast.
