Where there’s smoke

Smoke

On July 21st we had a very dramatic evening storm. Thunder and lightning. And the lightning wasn’t just short, sharp bolts. This stuff shot horizontally across the sky or came down vertically in long zig zags and lasted for hours. So it was no surprise to learn within a few days that the lightning had sparked several small fires in Olympic National Park. Crews have been monitoring them and since they’re in wilderness areas response has been fairly low key. We’ve occasionally seen smoke from one of the fires.

On Wednesday I noticed a plume of smoke that diminished in the evening. Yesterday it was hot — in the 90s, rare here — and the plume grew, fast. Then, by sunset, it was gone.

Our forest isn’t a tinderbox like most of California. But there’s plenty of fuel. And we’ve seen enough forest fires that smoke is always worrisome.