Friday, August 20, 2010

this is what poor air quality looks like


the smoke from the BC wildfires are hanging over Lethbridge today, with an air quality of 122, or very poor. Admittedly, it looks just like fog or mist. But it smells like the remains of last night's campfire.

I hate thinking of what's happening in some of the most beautiful parts of my home province. When we drove across BC to Alberta last month, haze covered the skies throughout the entire interior, and you couldn't help noticing how brown the hills around Kamloops were, and how the formerly green stands of trees were red-brown from pine beetle - or else, just dead. Hoping for safety for the residents, and recovery from one of the most devastating fire seasons the province has yet seen.

How beautiful are these areas being devastated? Here's an old picture, for instance, of Chilko Lake. It's unlikely that it still looks like this right now.

Chilko Lake

3 comments:

Heather said...

The smoke has been terrible here (the Okanagan) lately. We were driving past Kamloops on the weekend and we could not even see the city in the valley below. Luckily we have now received a bit of rain and cooler weather and the smoke is gone - for now - although we will need a lot more rain to really have any influence on the fires.

Sophie_vf said...

Wishing you guys lots of rain.
Even knowing fire is an important part of the ecological cycle, this just seems extreme and difficult. The interior seems to have changed a lot in the last few years, at least what we've seen from the no. 1 highway.

RAJESH RAMAN said...

how beautiful place it is !