Smokey Skies

We tried for a long weekend camping trip as kind of the last hurrah of summer camping but it was cut short due to the wildfires raging in NE Washington.

 I took this picture at noon as we were settling in for lunch on the beach.

I took this picture an hour and a half later and it only got thicker.

By the next day they had us evacuate the campground as a precaution.  So we headed south as our route home was closed by a nearby fire.  We went south where the air cleared and things looked beautiful again.  That was short lived.  By the next day, the smoke was so heavy from fires to the west that air quality all over the region was nearly as bad as it was back when Mt. St. Helens blew.  We decided it was time to head home.

It feels like NE Washington is burning up.  My hometown has two huge fires raging around it scorching over 400,000 acres and they are still burning.  My parents were evacuated from their home for the most part of a week.  They're back home now, the fire coming close but thankfully not close enough.  Their pool had embers floating in it, the bottom was black with ash and there were embers embedded in the carpeted pool deck that had thankfully not ignited.  A house just to the north of them was burned to the ground though and there are many stories like that.  Some of our friends had it burn all the way up to their patio but their house somehow survived.  Our thoughts have been with them and so many who were not so lucky.