8/13/26 6:45 56F (13.3C) AQI 84 smokey, no wind.

Smoke has returned to the valley. I can see it, I can smell it and I can taste it.

Just out of sight, beating propellers announce the passage of aircraft, probably water bombers behind the ridge.

There was a fire in the Gorge at Gorton Creek reported yesterday.

A cluster of fires southwest of Timothy Lake is growing, and there is a fire in Estacada.

The Grasshopper fire has grown to 80000 acres and slipped to 20% containment.

Friend and Dufur are threatened.  Some houses have been lost.

Our fire season is directly linked to increasingly hot, dry summers

We’ve  had a hundred years of warnings about pollution linked global warming.

Even faced with a decade of increased average summer temperatures and drought that has become a seasonal feature, there are people who cannot connect the dots.

Their red hats match the color of the morning sun struggling to shine through the wildfire haze.

Good morning.