34 Days

I really hate to whine on my blog, but today, I feel the need. Lighting lit forests in our county on fire 34 DAYS ago, and 190,000+ acres later, we are still only 65% contained. I'm not going to complain about the efforts of the firefighters- they are working like crazy in the heat and smoke, and they really haven't lost any major structures with all the acres burned. They have become a staple of our community for the past 5 weeks. There are trucks from all over the state, and other western states constantly cruising through our town or hanging out in our parking lots. We got to know one nice strike crew from Arizona who hung out in the park with us one day. They gave the kids stickers and chatted about all the crazy fire we are having... a good attitude for dealing with it for so long, so far from home. But, IT'S RIDICULOUS here! It's unlike any fire season we've ever seen. Kylee's elementary school, across the street from us, continues to be both a Red Cross Shelter and a place for fire crews to rest during the day. My friends are teachers at the school, and with school scheduled to start in mid-August, they are a bit frustrated with not being allowed inside to prep for the year. There are still new mandatory evacuations almost everyday, and some of the families being evacuated are doing it for the 3rd and 4th time. It is beyond frustrating for these families, who are constantly wondering why this is happening AGAIN- and getting very little info.

The hardest part of everyday life is, without a doubt, the smoke. There are all these visibilty and air quality guides for us to follow. The guide says the air can be: healthy, moderate, unhealthy, very unhealthy, and hazardous. They basically say that even in the "moderate level" children, elderly, and people with respiratory or heart conditions, should limit outdoor activity and just stay indoors. That if you can see or smell smoke, stay inside. We have been in the very unhealthy range since June, and this week we just entered the hazardous range. We have less than 1/2 mile visibility, sometimes much worse. Some evenings we sit and watch the ash fall from the sky, like we watched the snowflakes in the winter. We all still go out in it, Wes is in construction, and they have long hours in the summer- and he still has to work, and we still have to pay our bills, regardless of how smokey it is. We really don't know what damage is being done to our lungs, we just keep hoping that one day we will breathe clean air again. It's just frustrating to know that all the other fires in the state have reached containment, and we are still sitting in this nasty smoke. We keep hearing how this is "healthy" for our forests, that this kind of burning is natural and good in the long run. I'm sure it is, but what good is 190,000+ acres of healthy forest, when the thousands of people who live around it and take care of it, are all dying off from these toxins. I know that is so drastic, but seriously, I don't know what breathing "hazardous" air is doing to my family- but it can't be good.

They aren't thinking our fires will reach containment until mid-August, so we are looking at dealing with this situation for more weeks to come. I'm tired of wondering if I should let my kids jump on the trampoline or run around for a couple of hours to burn off some energy outside, this is their summer break! We should be outside all day! My mom convinced me to come enjoy a week of fresh, breezy air in Oakland, so I'll take off with the kids tomorrow. I feel lucky to have a place to go to get a break, and feel awful for my community who can't leave, and have to sit and endure it. Let's hope they decide that enough is enough- and find a way to just put the fires out, for gosh sakes!


Somedays, we can't even see the sun- today it's coming through just a bit!

Here's our smokey house today, I used to be able to see the backdrop of mountains from this view of our house.