Prius Hilton #15: Wildfires & Winter Season
Wildfires
As you may have heard, there was a devastating wildfire in Butte County, Norther California back in November. It started on November 8 and was not fully contained until November 25, a full 17 days later. I’m not the best person to expand on the details or the impact, but you can read more here:
During this time, the smoke from the fire spread to the entire San Francisco bay area, dramatically affecting air quality. We’ve had smoke from wildfires before, but I haven’t experienced anything so extreme or long-lasting (and not all while living in a car). It felt somewhat apocalyptic, with darkened skies, emptier streets, and people walking around with face masks.
At first, I assumed it would pass within a few days. But as the days went on and air quality failed to improve, naturally I started to worry about the pollution affecting my health. I have the AC set to recirculate, but the combination of cars not being airtight and the fact that I had to open the door to get in made me quite skeptical about the air quality inside my car.
After a week of poor air quality, I woke up with some itchiness in my throat; I decided I needed to do something. I considered a few living options until the air quality improved, but decided on sleeping in the nap rooms at work. It’s not particularly enjoyable to do so, but it was a reasonable tradeoff given the ease and lack of planning required (eg. I was also considering booking a flight out of town).
Finally, the rain came, ending the smoke and all was…not well, given the destruction caused by the actual fire. But I was able to move back into my car, so there’s that…
Winter Season
A common question I get asked is how the winter season affects how I live in my car. The short answer is that it doesn’t really.
As far as the temperature is concerned, because I keep the AC on all night, the internal temperature overnight has stayed relatively constant throughout the seasons. That said, sleeping in later into the morning is a bit more comfortable given it stays cooler for longer (see Prius Hilton #11 on Summer heat).
The other main factor during the winter is that sometimes either my clothes or my umbrella will be soaked with rain when I get into the car. To combat humidity though, again the AC runs overnight, and I have two moisture absorbers at each end of my car. I’ll also note that moisture has to be dealt with year-round since I hang my towel inside my car after showering.
