Carla, so sorry you guys are dealing with all those fires! I hope they will be out soon so that life can return to normal for you. Best to stay indoors or maybe wear a mask outdoors. Here in southern CA, I am not gardening as much mostly because it is too darn hot to be outside!

Ick. Is there ash coming down as well?

No ash, but it always smells like smoke, and visually it looks like fog in January. In some places, mostly the foothills, you can only see a couple of blocks. In Colfax they are getting smog readings almost daily above 300 (!) and I guess the air readers broke because they got so clogged. (Below 50 is good, 50 to 100 is moderate, 100 to 150 is hazardous for sensitive, and above 150 is severely hazardous for everyone) I went to Home Depot this afternoon and it was actually a little hazy INSIDE because of their open doors.

Carla in Sac

I woke up to heavy smoke this A.M.and I am west of the Butte Complex causing all the smoke. As I write, I am listening to hear if the fire jumped the Feather River, and got to Paradise. My son, daughter in law, and grandson are here with me because they can't go home -- they are in an immediate threat evacuation. I hate the smoke and how it makes me feel, but have a bigger concern for the 4,000 displaced households. I do have to agree that it is eerie to see it looking like this, and we do have ash as well as the smell in our area.

My son works at the hospital in Paradise and they moved all their patients to Chico in the middle of the night. My daughter in law is a nurse at a convalescent hospital there and they moved all their people to three hospitals in Chico. Being in good health I can only imagine sick people with respiratory problems breathing that air. Al

It's really hard to breath here. I only go out to turn on the hoses to the drip and soaker hoses. It is like a heavy blanket of smoke and ash over the valley. The inversion layer is keeping it down. A good wind would help blow it away but that would make the fire grow more. All we can do is to pray for the people who have lost their homes and those who are wondering if they will have homes when this is over. Special prayers are being said for the firefighters, we know how tired they are getting.
Donna

My GD lives in Marysville and she said the air quality there is very bad,and it's very smokey outside.She is an asthmatic ,so i worry about her.She went in to the dr's today to get a new inhaler,and she also has a baby and a 3 year old,so says she stays inside 98% of the time.I told her to pray for rain and cooler weather.
Kathi