Inktrails from Alaska

It Keeps on Coming

Okay, I thought we'd had the worst smoke weather you could possibly imagine. But this morning took the cake.

This morning, while puttering around the livingroom I saw rain start to fall outside the window. Oh boy! Rain, finally! That means I'll have air to breathe today! I can maybe even go outside without a particulate mask! This mask isn't just a paper mask folks. A paper mask won't do squat to remove particulate from forest fire smoke. No, this mask is the full-on Alien Bug Face mask that scares little children and less hardy adults. It is hot to wear in the 85 degree heat we've been having.

Except the heat is gone now. It was 40 degrees this morning, which, as an Alaskan, felt just fine. Very comfortable. Believe it or not standing in bare feet in a T-shirt this morning, with a little rain coming down, I thought that it could be a nice day.

Then I got in my truck to go to work and discovered that the rain was SANDY, and the smoke was not gone at all, but WORSE and clear to the ground. Visibility was near zero.

Let's recap:

It was raining gucky rain, and there was MORE smoke. I've never seen anything weirder.

I came into town and the smoke got a bit lighter. But as the afternoon wore on the wind kicked up and blew more smoke in, and it subsequently got pretty bad. Smoke is hanging in the air in the building where I work. Big gusts of smoke keep coming in the leaky windows.

There is news from south of here as well. Right now Anchorage is flooding, up to 20+ inches in places. The rain has hit Wasilla, and I suspect will arrive here sooner or later.

Let's just hope it doesn't rain mud!

Signs of Forest Fire Smoke Pollution

Mild Smoke

1. The birds are still flitting from bush to bush, tree to tree. They land, and go "Tweet! Tweet! "

2. You take your dog for a walk and when you get back you BOTH have to blow your noses.

3. The sun is slightly obscured and shows a blurry outline, kind of like a lemon pudding.

4. Objects, trees and landmarks in the distance have artistic "fog" or "steam" around them, like graveyards in horror movies. The whole landscape is softer looking.

5. Every once in a while you get a whiff of burning wood.

6. Your truck window is a little dirtier than usual.

Thicker Smoke

1. The birds don't flit, and don't sing. In fact, you wonder where they all went. You can't see any and it's ominously quiet outside.

2. You and your dog start to go for a walk, and you both have streaming eyes that feel like they've been sandpapered before you go fifty feet. As you head back to the cabin, you both have a coughing fit.

3. The sun is a flat, orange disk. You can look straight at it. When you see it through the upper blue part of your windshield, it looks purple!

4. Large objects in the distance are a lot closer, because the farthest away objects are invisible behind a curtain of smoke. Moose are hanging around clearings and roadsides, looking for a breath of air.

5. Every time you open your cabin door, the smell of burning trees is intense. Everything you wear outside starts to smell like smoke.

6. There's a definite layer of ashes on your windshield every morning. Never mind the coughing dog, now your truck is coughing.

Extreme Smoke

1. The birds are in little piles, motionless around the bottoms of the tree trunks. The squirrels are running around wearing little gas masks.

2. You don't go for a walk because you open the door and the dog refuses to go outside. Your dog starts to use the toilet.

3. What sun?

4. Your world is restricted to the ten feet in front of you. Wait, where are your feet?

5. The whole world stinks. You are so used to it that when you go into an air conditioned building it smells weird.

6. It's snowing ashes and burned leaves. Somehow you find your truck and dig it out. Driving down the road you see moose hitchhiking south. When you get to town you can't see the stoplights, but the ravens are directing traffic.

Fairbanks Weather News

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FAIRBANKS AK 635 PM ADT SAT AUG 21 2004

AKZ222-222000- MIDDLE TANANA VALLEY- INCLUDING...FAIRBANKS...FORT WAINWRIGHT...EIELSON AFB...ESTER... NORTH POLE...MOOSE CREEK...TWO RIVERS...FOX...CHATANIKA...CHENA HOT SPRINGS...SOURDOUGH CAMP 635 PM ADT SAT AUG 21 2004

...DENSE SMOKE WILL REMAIN OVER NORTHERN ALASKA THROUGH SUNDAY AND POSSIBLY INTO MONDAY...

DENSE SMOKE NOW COVERS MUCH OF NORTHERN ALASKA SOUTH OF THE BROOKS RANGE. MANY LOCATIONS HAVE VISIBILITIES BELOW ONE MILE DUE TO THE SMOKE. SMOKE HAS SPREAD AS FAR WEST AS KOTZEBUE AND NOME WHERE VISIBILITY HAS DROPPED TO NEAR ONE MILE. IN FAIRBANKS THE VISIBILITY HAS DROPPED TO 1/2 MILE THIS EVENING.

DENSE SMOKE WILL REMAIN OVER NORTHERN ALASKA THROUGH SUNDAY AND POSSIBLY INTO MONDAY. THIS INCLUDES FAIRBANKS. THE SMOKE WILL THIN SLIGHTLY EACH DAY DURING THE AFTERNOON AND EVENING HOURS. THE SMOKE LAYER IS NOW 11,000 FEET DEEP OVER FAIRBANKS.

THE HIGH PRESSURE TRAPPING THE SMOKE OVER ALASKA IS FORECAST TO REMAIN THROUGH MONDAY...AND THEN SLOWLY WEAKEN. AS THE HIGH PRESSURE WEAKENS NEXT WEEK THE SMOKE WILL BE ABLE TO DISPERSE TO HIGHER ELEVATIONS AND THE SMOKE AT THE SURFACE SHOULD THIN. TEMPERATURES SHOULD ALSO COOL NEXT WEEK, BUT LITTLE IF ANY RAIN IS EXPECTED.

• • • • • • • • *

Visibility was a few hundred feet out where I live today and yesterday. Ash is falling like dirty snow. The hospital in Fairbanks has opened a smoke respite room that is open 24 hours for the duration.

It's bad here, folks.

Even people without asthma are getting sick now. Just about all my music students say they are having headaches daily, nearly everyone has a sore throat, and we are clearing "sand" out of our eyes. Walk for ten minutes and your lungs burn, no matter how healthy you are.

People do not have air conditioning here. Yet we have to lock ourselves inside, sweltering in 80-90 degree heat. Buildings heat up during the day and are often south-facing, and don't lose heat at night because they are so well-insulated for the summer. Besides that, there are only a couple hours of night anyway! We have to keep the windows closed because otherwise the house fills with smoke.

My cabin has an air exchange system, but I think the filters are overwhelmed. It's not air conditioning, but it's a little bit of filtering, a godsend to me. Still, the cabin never cools off.

I'm wearing the P100 particulate mask most of the time that I am outside my cabin, but I can't wear it to teach, and the building I teach in is like a paper bag.

Particulate levels are up to 650 as of yesterday, and are rising about 200-300 per day. The equipment here doesn't measure past 1000, and it reached that last June. This smoke is worse than last June, so I'm expecting particulate levels are at least 1000 by tomorrow or Monday.

Even my macho Alaskan men friends are openly angry and discouraged and depressed. One even told me today he was seriously considering buying a particulate mask like mine. My landlord, even though there is no danger from any fire, keeps emptying the well out onto the property all around the cabin. He's just trying to do something, anything, to relieve his anxiety about the fact that it certainly LOOKS like the end of the world is near.

Now EVERYONE in Fairbanks knows what it's like to have asthma.

This is officially the worst fire season ever on record for Alaska. More acres have burned than have ever been recorded. As far as I know, my place is in no danger of burning down.

I Give Up

There is a new fire, resulting in the evacuation of town of Central. It's still a good ways from Chena Hot Springs Road, but the air is just DESPICULOUS. I just made that up. The air would be mud if there were a degree more humidity.

It's hot, humid, and smokey. Lovely. I'm back to wearing my Alien Bug Mask. It's making Stevie cough! I have to get antihistamines for all of us!

Everyone's eyes are burning and it's making everyone very tired. It makes you tired to live and breathe serious forest fire smoke. It's funny. Even people without asthma are saying "I'm so TIRED. I wonder why??" But since this is like the zillionth week of smoke, people are starting to put two and two together.

I think the old timers are right. It won't stop being smoke until it snows a lot. And then it will start right up again next year because believe it or not, the fire is down into the tundra and it will burn under the snow all winter. I have a hard time believing this but folks tell me it is so. To me, that's freaky, right along with viruses being able to crystallize for hundreds of years, and people owing taxes after death.

If this keeps up every year, we won't be Land of the Midnight Sun anymore. We'll be Land of the Midnight Cottonball.

Happy Birthday to Me

I got what I wanted for my birthday: a smoke-free day and a home visit from The Boyfriend! He's been camping out at the Boundary Fire for what seems like forever, working 14-hr days and only available for short visits after 11pm by the gate before he goes in and collapses and starts another round.

My son called me in the morning and woke me up out of a bad dream, which I appreciated.

Neighbor Dave took me out to lunch, and on the way into town my son called again and sang Happy Birthday to me, politely waiting until I merged onto the highway first. I have to admit that when he sang "Haaaappy Birrrthday dear Mooooommmmyyyyy" I got a little tear in the eye, but it was a good tear. That's the best present I could possibly get.

After lunch we watched This Is Spinal Tap. Then Dave went home and I took a nap. What a great day!

Fire Danger Over, For Now

The rainy season is upon us, and with it the fires are going out in the Fairbanks area. The winds have consistently blown the fires back upon themselves for a week, resulting in little advancement, if any, of the flames. We are safe.

Scott is up working at the Boundary/Wolf Creek Fire (those two fires finally merged into one big fire) with his bulldozer, and has been living at the fire camp for a week. Fourteen hour days are the norm for the heavy equipment operators, who are doing "rehab", that is pushing the vegetation back onto the fire line cuts that were made to stop the fires. He says he hasn't been anywhere near any blackened timbers, except to see them from far away over a hillside. He hasn't seen any flames at all, either.

The crews are going home, a few at a time. It looks like the camp might be open for several more days but that will be about it. The smoke did not come back after this last, and worst episode. My particulate mask is still hanging from my rear-view mirror! I'm glad I haven't had to use it.

Stevie's Five Lives

As the fireweed goes into cottony end-bloom, Stevie's nose has started acting up again. Despite having a biopsy that says "the cells are consistent with chondrosarcoma" I wonder very much whether what happens to him might just be a very severe allergic reaction.

We moved from a thick, white spruce forest to a much thinner aspen and birch forest, with the occasional white spruce. When the landlord cut spruce branches out where Stevie plays, he started having sneezing episodes that culminated with a couple bloody nose episodes, but he seems to have gotten over it now. He's still having a little trouble, but he isn't bleeding, thank goodness.

Stevie the Wonder Dog has survived several lives: two mysterious life-threatening episodes of a strange fever coupled with an almost zero count of white blood cells, but no signs of infection anywhere; someone shot him in the HEART with a .22 or .32 and I have the X-RAY to prove it, it's still in there and doesn't cause him any trouble at all; he nearly drowned several weeks ago and I jumped in and saved him (see Water Sports blog entry); and he was diagnosed with cancer and given three months to live back in April. Let's see, that's five lives so far. And he still runs around and plays like a dog of seven. He's 16. He's not even gray in the face, just a little more tan. Let's hope he has four more just like his cat friends.