Monday, September 12, 2022

Disappearing mountains

We've had a good summer, here in BC, as far as forest fires go. There have been over 1500 fires so far this year, but they've been mostly small. At the moment, we have 8 fires burning here on the island, and another 6 on the mainland just east of us. They're small fires but there's a brownish haze over the hills; smoke. Not a lot, but enough to make a red spot on the air quality map. Enough to bring on a stuffy headache. Enough to disappear the mountain peaks.

I drove north, looking for cleaner air. I found it, in spots.

In the hills north of Roberts Lake, looking west. There should be mountains beyond those trees.

Fireweed, gone to seed. And smoky forest, invisible mountain.

Down on the lake itself, the view was better, though there is still a pinkish tinge in the sky.

And there on the far right, there's something in the water.

Looks like a seal.

Zooming in.

I found a fire/smoke forecast map. It shows more smoke in the next few days. But we have it mild compared to down south and in the centre of the province, where more and larger fires are burning. Rain, please, rain!

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Hemos tenido un verano bueno, en lo que toca a incendios del bosque. Hubo más de mil quinientos incendios, pero por la mayor parte, todos pequeños. Por ahora, hay 8 incendios aquí cerca en la isla, y otros 6 en tierra firma hacia el este. Cubren poco terreno, pero el aire lleva un tinte de color café por el humo. No mucho, pero suficiente como para poner una advertencia en el mapa. Suficiente como para causar un dolor de cabeza. Suficiente para esconder las montañas.

Tomé la carretera hacia el norte, buscando aire limpio.

Fotos:
  1. Desde un cerro al norte del lago Roberts. Tras esos árboles debe haber montañas.
  2. Adelfilla, produciendo semilla. Se llama, en inglés, hierba de fuego porque crece donde hubo incendios. Y tras la planta, un bosque con humo.
  3. Ya abajo, al lado del lago, se ve todo mejor, aunque sigue ese tono algo rosado.
  4. Veo un animal en el agua. Una foca, tal vez.
  5. Haciendo zoom.
Encontré una mapa que muestra el humo al corriente. Nos pronostica más humo esta semana. Pero les va peor hacia el sur, y en el interior de la provincia, donde hay más incendios, y más grandes. ¡Necesitamos lluvia!


2 comments:

  1. I almost didn't realize you had a link on the fire/smoke map. The URL doesn't get highlighted until you mouse-over it (Chrome browser, Windows). But it's a neat map - some of those hotspots seem very close.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The URL doesn't get highlighted until you mouse-over it." I never thought of that. I'll have to change how I do things.

      Delete

I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.

Also, I have word verification on, because I found out that not only do I get spam without it, but it gets passed on to anyone commenting in that thread. Not cool!

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