Anticipating Fire
Living with fire and smoke in Northern California
You can mark the start of spring in parts of Northern California by the clumps of daffodils rising in patches of black dirt; the chorus of sneezes resounding in stores and outdoor cafes; and the arrival of balmy days, chasing away the wet, wintry ones. But even as oaks and Chinese elms dress their limbs in splendid emerald, forming canopies across neighborhoods, parks and busy streets, I’m already growing anxious about fire.
When the first wave of smoke from the 2018 Camp Fire advanced southward from Paradise, California, the acrid smell woke me up before dawn. My first thought was I had forgotten to buy face masks. For the ten days that followed, the air quality index in parts of the Sacramento Valley exceeded 150 — soaring to 497 on day three of the fire — a degree of pollution that is unhealthy for everyone, not just people with underlying health conditions. Because our part of the state had never seen this much pollution from wildfires, the noxious, smoke-filled world in which I had awakened felt novel at the time. But now it has become a recurring part of our lives.
Breathing uneasy
California has witnessed some of the most devastating wildfires on record over the past several years, burning through forests and towns and drastically…
