It is forest fire season in Alaska.

Alaska is so B I G and so underpopulated that unless a fire is directly threatening buildings or other property, it is just left to burn. Fires consuming areas larger than many whole countries are not uncommon.

Presently, the area where I live has fires burning on several sides, some as close as 30-40 miles away, others perhaps a couple hundred miles. These fires generate considerable smoke. For the past couple of weeks, the air here in Fairbanks has looked more or less like the lower of the two attached photos.

When that second photo was taken, the particulate count was in excess of 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter. Just 65 mg/M^3 is considered unhealthy and at that level children and people with respiratory problems are urged to remain indoors, and all people are urged to avoid strenuous activity.

When working at a high aerobic level, you are breathing in more than 20 times as much air as you do when you are sedentary, so under the extreme conditions shown in the photo, if you were at a high aerobic level you would be breathing in more than 300 times the unhealthy minimum amount of particulates.

It has been a dark and gloomy summer!

tanstaafl.

Holy crap time for a respirator.