A photo of me at the edge of the Klamathon Fire near Ashland, Oregon in 2018
by Tommy Brown
Fire country has a different feeling. There is somehow a different sense that you are at risk, the peril of fire is transient. Fire does not rest. Fuel availability and weather will drive a fire into different areas in an instant, it's not impossible to predict, but compared to other weather driven phenomena, it is exceedingly difficult. Just because one fire has passed, there is no guarantee that another will not start nearby.
Natural fires, ones that are ignited from lightning strikes, are only one facet of the issue. In fact, there is nothing that prevents a human caused fire from igniting right behind a crew of firefighters as they attempt to control the front of the fire. That’s probably why they call them “wildfires”, they’re difficult to control. As temperatures increase and dry, windy conditions become more prevalent, we get more fires and more extreme fire behavior with it.
"100 years of fire suppression," people seem to repeat the phrase a lot as we breathed the smoke from one of the worst years on record in 2018. As I write this, hipsters in Portland are giving up hand-rolls because breathing this air is like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Particulate matter under 2.5 microns, or PM2.5 as we call it here under the blanket of smoke, is small enough to enter your bloodstream through your lungs. It's a fine dust and if you breathe it long enough, like I did at the farmer's market yesterday, you will feel the definition of fatigued. It makes your throat scratchy and a dull headache comes with it. I think the headaches are mostly from benzene and formaldehyde in the freshly burned forest fire smoke.
A magenta sun shrouded in smoke in Josephine County, Oregon. August 2018
We haven’t really been getting headaches from the smoke recently, for the sake of levity, we joke that the smoke from the fires in Canada is "a little nicer, with a hint of maple". But sadly, it really is nice when the smoke has made an 800 mile journey to get to your town, it doesn't smell the acrid smell of recently combusted Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir being scorched into the skies. The headaches aren't as strong when the smoke travels a long distance and if the air quality index drops low enough, you might go outside to enjoy the cool evening and watch the setting of the apocalyptic magenta sun.
Just today, a new fire has ignited in close proximity to Medford, Oregon, a city of 80,000 people from the 2010 census. The cause is still under investigation, but there weren't any known lightning strikes in the area today, so we’re left to assume it was a person who contributed to its ignition. An important note, multiple fires totaling over 150,000 acres have been burning since July 15th, 2018 and everyone wants them to go out, now firefighters and air tankers that drop water and fire retardant will be reassigned off some of these fires to try to stop this new fire before it threatens a large community. Fires caused by people compound the threat of wildfire season across the West.
The shelf cloud associated with thousands of lightning strikes that ignited wildfires across southern Oregon on July 15th, 2018
A thick blanket of yellow-brown smoke is incredibly oppressive. Ashland, Oregon, the town I currently live in, is usually full of sidewalk strolling families and retirees, tourists and college students on their way to plays, restaurants or fitness classes. Mountain bikers roll through the streets before or after a ride in the watershed trails near town and runners dart across the streets from sidewalk to sidewalk. But when the smoke settles in, nobody in their right mind spends much time outside. Some people wear masks, others don't. Some people complain about the smoke, others drink into the night waiting for the smoke to subside.
In truth, there is no way to know when the fires will die and the smoke will go away. The GFS model, which stands for Global Forecast System, a notoriously poor weather model for long term prediction, seems to forecast sparse precipitation in the 6-10 day outlook, but those predictions are rarely correct, and even if they are, the precipitation could come in the form of thunderstorms, with more lightning strikes, starting more fires, extending this slow smoldering disaster until the true beginning of the rainy season. You can stay informed about wildfires in the US by checking out the Brown Weather US Fire Information page.
The real culprit of these fires can be broken down into four areas. Number 1, the history of fire suppression in the west. Second, the development into the edge of the wildlands where homes and communities will be most prone to ignite and experience the impacts of fire. No discussion of wildfire can leave out the influence of increasing global average temperatures. And finally, the establishment of overgrown, fuel loaded forests in a place where the hot season is also the dry season. All of these factors combine to take fire from being a part of life to making it a serious threat to maintaining quality of life.
For Brown Weather, this is a perfect storm. All of those factors which influence the development of this simultaneously acute and geographically diffuse disaster have a human influence. My aim is to help people realize how much we are subject to the weather while also understanding the impact we have on our environment. It’s important to be aware and prepared in the face of weather born disasters.
Fires move fast. Science, policy, and awareness often lag behind. As the sun sets on another smoky day, I hope we start to catch up.
About Tommy Brown
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