Days of the Red Sun

 

When the sun looks like this it is a pretty sight, but it is not a good sign at all. We call this sun either the Red Sun or the Fire Sun. The intense color results from heavy smoke in the air, and the smoke, of course, originates from wildfires.

Last Sunday and Monday we had a series of bizzare thunderstorms, or should I say lightning storms since we only received a minimum of rain that didn't help much. These storms happened amid triple-digit temperatures, our first serious heatwave this year. The last time it had rained was back in May, so everything has been extremely dry.

We were worried all through these two days and sure enough soon the first warnings about wildfires came in. These were in Napa County which is our neighboring county. Most of these fires occurred along Highway 128, the route I usually took when I drove to Davis. But then we heard that there was a fire in the Austin Creek area in our county (the Walbridge Fire) - a heavily forested area with narrow and winding roads which makes evacuation difficult and dangerous. This area hasn't burned for decades and has enough fuel to feed a huge fire. Fire also produces its own winds and even fire tornadoes that makes the already bad situation even worse and less manageable. Evacuation orders were put in place as well as rather extended evacuation warning zones to get people ready to go if the need arises.

Shortly after that another fire north of Jenner at the coast was spotted (the Meyers Fire). All of these fires were started by lightning strikes and added to the already high amount of wildfires we had all over California before that. 

Nixle alerts were pouring in, but thankfully the night was quiet with no new evacuation orders. Yesterday our view from the second story of our house looked like this - you can see a wall of smoke moving in, and soon after that the sun disappeared, the light became an eerie yellowish and the air quality was horrible. We stayed inside, shut down the house, had the air filters running and trying to make the best out of this situation. Even if you try to stay calm and reasonable, there is so much anxiety because we had experienced the October 2017 fires and know how quickly a dangerous situation can become a disaster. I certainly don't want to see anything like this again:

The remains of our old home after the Tubbs Fire- thank fully we hadn't lived there anymore in October 2017

This morning the air quality had improved, but not for very long. It is horrible again. I really have become hateful of the smell of wildfire smoke. It triggers bad memories for everyone here.

The mandatory evacuation zone was extended this morning. The people in the area that used to be under evacuation warning now have to leave their homes without knowing whether they will still be there when they are allowed to return. There are evacuation centers available, but other than in 2017 when people were sheltered in big buildings, these centers now are mainly huge parking lots so that people can isolate in their cars.  COVID-19 makes everything so much more difficult.

If we had to evacuate, where would we go? I have no idea.