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Wildfire Update: Here Is a Sunset That Occurred on Planet Earth

It smells like a cross between a sauna and a campfire.

I took this last night from near my home outside of Stevenson, WA. This is more or less the scene across the Pacific-Northwest. Dense smoke.

The Columbian, the daily newspaper in Vancouver, WA, reports that the thick yellowish haze has prompted a flood of 911 calls across the Portland/Vancouver area. According to USGS data, the nearest wildfire to the metropolitan area is 30ish miles away in the mountains above Washougal, WA, but the smoke is probably from all over the region, as strong winds are pushing it all westward. The situation should improve smoke-wise later on Sunday as the winds make a 180 and clear things out.

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Image: arcgis.com

The smoke will be gone, but the fires will still be raging. On Friday, the the Okanogan Complex fire managed to explode to 355 square-miles, up 100 square-miles (square-miles!) from the day before, while the day before that was up 100 square-miles from Thursday. That's a whole lot of fire moving very, very fast.

Here's another, from the summit of Wind Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge:

The good news is that, at least weather-wise, changing wind patterns will offer some relief over the next few days, according to the latest NOAA fire forecast. Maybe just maybe things might take a break from the whole flaming cascade of catastrophe seen over the past week. I feel like I've said that before pretty recently, however.