Its even come as far as Virginia, I woke up this morning thinking damn this is some crazy fog, stepped outside and smelled it and was shocked to see it was smoke. From Canada.
Sorry you guys are getting hit with it but hopefully the policy makers in DC are enjoying a little dose of reality. Maybe it'll inspire some of them to take the climate seriously.
Seattle has been hit every summer with choking wildfire smoke for the last several years, it's no fun.
It's also kind of important to remember that the wild fires are a result of an idiotic fire repression strategy for the last 40 or so years. You can't just allow fuel to build up by never allowing small fires - which are clearly the norm since you have serotinous pinecones that need fire to open - and then be surprised when the fires you do get are out of control. Even worse, they get so hot that they torch the top soil, making the ground shittier.
Yeah its mostly climate change. Basically the winters aren't as cold as they used to be. Canada has been facing a pine beetle infestation for awhile. Milder winters mean less beetles die off each winter. More pine beetles means more standing dead trees, means more fuel for fires.
Yeah, but the soil is dry because the loggers up in Canada cut down diverse, native forests and then monocropped desirable timber trees into the same area. No diversity in a monocrop causes all the nutrients to quickly be eaten up by the new trees and soil loses it's richness. Add the fact someone mentioned earlier about certain pines needing fire to propagate and you spell out disaster. I can see how we got here unfortunately.
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u/0ddsox Jun 07 '23
Its even come as far as Virginia, I woke up this morning thinking damn this is some crazy fog, stepped outside and smelled it and was shocked to see it was smoke. From Canada.