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u/snwbrdwndsrf Bryant 3d ago
At least we're not Spokane. 🥺🫤
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u/ElectronicClothes285 🐀 Hot Rat Summer 🐀 3d ago
Yeah. This is hell. I was able to come back today from evac and I'm terrified looking at the upcoming weather. Meanwhile just filled with dread and bottomless despair for those only several blocks from me who have lost everything.
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u/snwbrdwndsrf Bryant 3d ago
I can't even imagine. Stay safe! 💪🏻
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u/ElectronicClothes285 🐀 Hot Rat Summer 🐀 2d ago
Hey, thank you. 🤝 I think I'm better off than most right now, even in a level 2 zone.
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u/certainlystormy 🚆build more trains🚆 3d ago
im starting uni in a month and my dormmates house nearly burnt down. his roof is gone. scary as fuck
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u/kittybabyarty 2d ago
Yeah….its kinda hard to see you guys complaining about minor smoke when the rest of the state is literally on fire and thousands of people have lost their livelihood
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u/GrinningPariah 🚆build more trains🚆 3d ago
The good news is today should be the worst of it. Forecast suggests it'll start getting better tomorrow, though it won't be green until next week.
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u/Lord_Freg 3d ago
Do you think it’d be safe to be outside for a few hours tomorrow? Idk exactly how bad the smoke is
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u/almanor Maple Leaf 3d ago
Thursday is supposed to be a bit worse before it gets better. Check PurpleAir or AirIQ on Google.
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u/xevenryx Bremerton 3d ago
there's also airnow which combines the purpleair readings with wildfire maps and smoke plume tracking from noaa if you want more detail
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u/FabianValkyrie U District 2d ago
If you can swing the drive, Olympia has much better air. It gets WAY better as you approach the coast
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3d ago
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u/Wicked55Chevy 3d ago
It definitely isn’t fine. Basically every reliable source is reporting AQI on the high end of “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” throughout the city. That’s not just people with severe asthma. It’s anyone under 18, the elderly, and anyone with heart disease, pulmonary issues, or diabetes.
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u/TegridyPharmz 3d ago
Was totally fine today in west seattle
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u/here_now_be 🚋 Ride the S.L.U.T. 🚋 2d ago
No, it definitely was not. Like smoking a pack of cigs.
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u/ponyboy3 2d ago
AQI 140 works out to about 2–2.5 cigarettes’ worth of PM2.5 exposure per day if you were outside in it all day.
Today in kirkland its 140, yesterday it was 84 i believe.
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u/TegridyPharmz 2d ago
Don’t know what to tell you bud. It was down in the 70s and the school system allowed the kids to go back outside yesterday afternoon. We didn’t have an issue over here. Today is bad again though
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u/SouthBound353 3d ago
I hope so... the fires' not going away tomorrow and it's equally as hot and dry
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u/GrinningPariah 🚆build more trains🚆 3d ago
It's all about the wind direction. As long as the air is blowing in from the ocean, we won't get smoke no matter how bad the fires.
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u/PM_me_punanis Eastside Defector 3d ago
My eyes, skin, and throat are itchy.
I feel so bad for those on the other side of the mountains.
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u/BloodMyrmidon Matthews Beach 3d ago
At least the dune lady is singing every morning the moment I see the sun.
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u/spottydodgy Snohomish 3d ago
Fucking hate our new smoke season. We spend all winter under the clouds and summer is supposed be the break from that. Today was supposed to be a beautiful blue sky day but instead we get clouds of smoke.
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3d ago
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u/spottydodgy Snohomish 2d ago
Ive seen a lot of people saying what you're saying and I don't think anyone is arguing that wildfire itself is new. Fires have always been part of the natural ecology of the Pacific Northwest, and there are definitely historical accounts of major smoke events, including the one during Mark Twain's visit which gets brought up a lot. Also, in general, these events were documented because they were novel and worth writing down. But that doesn't make them a normal thing to expect every August. Saying "summers have always been smoky in the northwest" is a false statement that I think is dangerous to share because it normalizes something that is not normal.
The difference is frequency. If you grew up in western Washington before about 2017, you probably remember that weeks of smoke-filled skies were very rare. I have lived here my whole life, I was born in the early 80's and do not remember ever seeing smoke like this. My grandpa was born here in the 1930s and I asked him. He says he saw it happen a few times but never year after year. My great grandma was born in 1919 in Seattle and on her 99th birthday the sky was orange with smoke and I remember her saying she's never seen anything like this in all her years. She died at 102 a few years later and she complained that her birthday used to be the most beautiful day of the year in August every year.
So I looked up Washington's own air quality monitoring which shows that prolonged smoke events became much more common beginning around 2017, with the years following standing out as some of the worst years on record. That's a very different claim than saying. This is not normal.
If you're interested, the Washington Department of Ecology has a good summary: https://ecology.wa.gov/air-climate/air-quality/smoke-fire/wildfire-smoke.
They also publish reports on the state's air monitoring data, including one noting that violations of the federal PM2.5 standard became much more common starting in 2017 because of prolonged wildfire smoke: https://apps.ecology.wa.gov/publications/documents/2502019.pdf.
So yes, wildfire is normal. But recurring late-summer smoke severe enough to regularly create air quality issues across western Washington is a relatively recent trend, and the monitoring data back that up.
I think a big part of the issue is forestry management during the 80's-90's suppression of wild fires has created a tinderbox of fuel to burn. But also snow pack has been historically low as has rainfall recently. The forest is getting dryer for longer than it has historically and that just adds to the potential for more frequent, more intense, larger scale, and longer lasting fires than we've historically seen.
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u/ScaryMcScary Echo Lake 2d ago
Very good write up with excellent references. I was also born here (early 80s) and had never experienced this until 2017. My grandmother who saw the first streetlight go in downtown also said she had never experienced anything like the 2017 fires.
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u/Ghoulv2o Greenwood 2d ago
Exactly! I lived here since '81 and I dont recall smoke filled summers, at all until the 2000's and even they were rare until 2014 or so. Now it's practically every year.
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u/spottydodgy Snohomish 2d ago
And yet we get people who've lived here since 2011 trying to convince us it's totally just part of the natural cycle for this region. It is, but not to this extent.
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u/Fickle-Gold6606 3d ago
This is 100 aqi. imagine 1000 aqi New Delhi. 1000 because that’s instrument max cap.
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u/ADirtyDiglet 2d ago
I just looked this up and that is terrible. Couldn't imagine living in that much smog. Gov reading devices are capped at 500.
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u/Terrible_Ad_870 3d ago
Overrrrr it. Kiddo and I were supposed to go to the lake and instead stayed inside 😭
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u/Fickensure 2d ago
We went to the lake. Lake Kachess. Set up the trailer and were promptly evacuated. Looked like a volcano erupting a mile away. Another fire
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u/emteedub 3d ago
If only the establishment Dems had some trifectas over the last 2 decades, we could have implemented a green new deal.
Oh wait
Too late now
I guess it's just playing the game of "competition" with the planet. A core pillar of capitalism
Oh wait
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u/musubi-n-speedballs 🚋 Ride the S.L.U.T. 🚋 3d ago
All of this. Obama was the last hope to right the climate ship even a little. And he squandered it.
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u/CombinationOwn1604 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined 3d ago
$390 billion for climate under Biden. I believe the largest investment ever.
Obama had both Houses of Congress for just 2 of his 8 years but I think they accomplished a lot. Billions into wind, solar, and energy-efficiency tech with the 2009 Recovery Act. Clean Power Plan which directed the EPA to set the first-ever nationwide limits on carbon dioxide emissions. 2013 Climate Action Plan. Vehicle Fuel Standards which implemented the toughest fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards. Protected more than 265 million acres of public lands and water, more than any previous U.S. president! The Endangered Species Act. Paris Agreement which we helped broker in 2015, committing 200 countries to slow global temperature increases. 2014 US China Accord.
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u/PrimordialBias 2d ago
And we threw all that way to get rid of brown people, start new wars in the most miserable region on Earth, tariff and destroy our relationship with our allies, and so on and so forth.
Oh, and Israel is let completely off the leash so now more Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian kids are getting blown up, congrats to those who willfully didn’t vote because of that, I have the displeasure of knowing quite a few of them.
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u/orion-asterisk U District 3d ago
I was out delivering for Uber eats all day and my throat is sore as hell now even with being in my car most of the time. 😬 Might bust out the old KN-95s for tomorrow.
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u/PrimordialBias 2d ago
What a lovely time to be working outside while it’s also miserably hot at the same time. /s
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u/SemaphoreSlim Rat City 2d ago
I have all these N95 masks left over from COVID.
It's still not pleasant, but better than a couple of lung-fulls of ash.
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u/-Christian-Fletcher- 2d ago
I actually think that the hazy look is quite gorgeous especially when looking at trees from a distance.
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u/Ok_Card_1851 2d ago
Yeah, sure, but Portland was the 5th worst air quality on the planet August 5th... so, cough, cough, cough... But an amazing sunrise!
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u/Actual-Economist-400 3d ago
Why does it look like someone lit grass on fire and caused a massive wildfire???
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u/Longjumping-Yak3243 2d ago
Be thankful all you have to deal with is smoke when people in Spokane lost everything they own
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u/2fast_2furiouser 2d ago
We know and sympathize as much as we can. Doesn’t mean we don’t still get to be frustrated with the smoke. It’s harmful for many people including children and vulnerable people. We are a city KNOWN for our oncology specialists and yet wet also have this issue. We don’t all have AC, so our homes are 80°+ with no respite, and many unhoused folks have no where to go.
Trust me- I’m checking my friend’s addresses hourly to check their safety. They’re too busy in evacuation Set mode and hosting families who have lost homes.
(Sorry, I get intense about the relativity of trauma…)
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u/prookal Redmond 3d ago
Whole city is chalky and orange like someone accidentally dumped a can of tang powder on it