The Horizon is Hazy When the World is on Fire

Last week there were over 30,000 lightning strikes in Alaska’s interior over the span of three days. This culminated in 140 different wildfires roaring across the dense spruce and birch forests.

My home is cradled in the center of the Alaska Range, the towering mountains holding me in their open palms. I’m lucky in this way; the mountains are so large that they create their own weather systems, of which my basin is the heart. My summer is one of sideways rain and temperatures that mingle with those of autumn. I wear insulated boots and rain jackets. I haven’t had to worry about wildfires.

But now, as though the weather arranged for such an event, the rain has stopped altogether, the wind has continued its torrent, and lightning storms ravaged the land. My summer is one of smoke.

The local radio insists on preparing for evacuation every day. Driving into town, the haze obscures the peaks, the tops of the evergreens. It filters into the truck, filling my throat with the cloying feeling of suffocation.

My home is perched high in the hills, giving me a long vantage point of the range in every direction. I watched as the northern mountains were consumed by grey; I counted the minute hand on the clock, amazed at the speed at which the smoke climbed and twirled and twisted its way past the rough…