The Wildfires are Polluting the Clean Coastal Air in California
Oct 23rd, 2007 by Mike
Fires are raging out of control across Southern California.
I live on the Southern California coast on the Newport Beach Peninsula, and would not expect to be affected that greatly by the fires burning inland.
You’d think that by living on the coast of California like I do that the air would be pristine and clean all the time… often it is, but often enough it is NOT as clean as I would like.
View my pictures and video from Monday 10-22-07
A perfect example has been over the last few days when the Santa Ana winds kicked in and those nasty fires started burning across Southern California.
Malibu got the most press as it devasted the homes of the stars and burned down multi million dollar mansions, but the fire that was closest to where I live in Newport Beach was the Orange County Irvine fires.
The Malibu fire started on early Sunday and I’ll give you a recap and show you a few pictures. Today is Tuesday and the smell of the burning gunk is still in the air. It sucks!
View my pictures and video from Monday 10-22-07
Sunday seemed just like any other ordinary day except that it was windy and hotter than usual. The temps here at the beach were in the 90’s and it was quite windy.
As I walked my dog on Sunday afternoon I remember telling my neighbor that some crazy neighbor was burning their fireplace despite the heat wave (it happens regularly here at the beach - I guess people think fires are romantic and aren’t as sensitive to the POLLUTION as I am…)
In any event my neighbor said it wasn’t fireplaces or the bonfires but was coming from Mailibu. It didn’t even occur to me that the smell could be from fires that far away (at least 60 miles up North on the coast). In the many years I have lived here, the impact of fires has been minimal. A little soot here and there and some monor discomfort but usually nothing to write home about.
That changed on Sunday evening when I wnet to my favorite local Chinese restaurant and was having some dinner. I placed my order and as I was waiting for the food I saw big clouds of dark brown smoke blowing by. I went outside to look and sure enough, it was a huge stream of smoke as large as clouds and it was flowing from inland. At that time I had no idea where it was coming from but later found out it was in Irvine.
It wasn’t that close but the wind was blowing so extreme that the soot and embers and nasty smoke was flowing staright to us on the ocean. We could not even see the fires and had no idea where they were yet the smoke was intense.
I finsihed my meal and when I got home it was dark, but by that time the stream of smoke tunred into a huge bank of clouds filled with soot. It was windy as hell and was very intense. The smell was awful and I proceeded to close all my windows back at the house.
I still didn’t realize it was serious and took my dog for his usual nightly 2 mile walk. It was intense and was so bad that I could barely keep my eyes open with all the gook in the air blasting in my face. It kept getting worse and worse so before long I turned back and we went home.
My nose was running and my eyes were burning. I had a headache and cold like symptoms. I felt like crap!
Turning on the tv, I thought I’d find out where the fire was, but the tv coverage was awful.
All I saw were stations showing aerial footage of burning homes and canyons and showing names that were not even familiar. I kept watching hoping to find something familiar and after quite a while finally heard them say Irvine, which is a city a few over from where I live.
I figured that must be the fire affecting us here on the peninsula… seemed strange as there have been fires inland in OC before and never have I even smelled the fire much less been bombarded by soot and such.
I did not get much info as the news covereage was mostly on site and they did not even show maps. They should really help us people out and show maps so we know where the fires are in relation to where we live.
I closed every window and it was torture that Sunday night. It was still like 80 degrees over night and was hotter than hell. It was the first sleepless night I have ever had here. My dog was constantly in my face and restless. I took hime out 2 times diring the night thinking he needed to go to the bathroom (it was still smoky out) but that wasn’t it. I guess the smoke irritated him and he was scared.
In any evcent, the next morning, Monday, I started to get more details of what was going on.
I took a walk around the block with Milo and it was still awful out. The daylight revealed the air around us was brown and there were billowing clouds of smoke blowing past us like a heavy bank of fog. But it was brown and you could see a heavy haze of orange.
We kept our walk brief and I snapped a few pictures to document it.
When we got home I found a tv weatherman showing a map from space and it showed the STREAM of air from the fires blowing directly towards the coast and over us here at Newport Beach. They showed a time lapse and it looked exactly like the fast moving clouds of smoke I saw blowing by us. Intense!
OK… that made sense. The wind was blowing west and blew all the junk away from the fires and dumped it over us here on the ocean.
So, we were even possibly getting more GUNK than those near the fires inland. In fact I remember hearing someone on the radio saying she was right by the fire and when they asked her about the smoke she said she could NOT smell it. She could see the fires but not smell it. It was blowing away from her.
That made sense - we got that toxic crap here on the coast. So - when you think you’re living where the air should be clean - something like this really opens up your eyes. That gunk drifted from inland and landed here over the coast on the ocean.
Today is Tueday and the fires are still burning. In fact some new ones have been cropping up, but for some reason today seems much better air quality wise. The smell is still in the air but not as heavy as yesterday. Wind direction may have changed or possibly a close by fire has improved… It’s hotter than hell in the 90’s and I still have most windows closed, so it is uncomfortable, but at least I can breathe and my eyes are not burning as much and my nose is not running.
Well… looking at things in prespective - yes - we got blasted here. BUT I still have to say that living on the coast is really a great place to live. This is not caharacteristic of the coast or Southern Califonia even. This batch of fires and hurricance force winds is the exception, not the norm…
I may complain about the smoke and the gunk in the air, but man, I feel so bad for those poor people who have been directly impacted by the fires and lost homes and possessions. That must be awful to experience. Sure - I was inconveneinced by the smoke, but my thoughts go out to those that had losses.