September 9, 2020 — Oakland/Berkeley Hills, California
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This morning at 8:40 a.m. the sky was a dim red-orange. Sunlight was filtered by fire smoke from a 350,000 acre group of fires in Mendocino county, more than 100 miles to the north. The red-orange light was then diffused through thick fog. Apocalyptic. It was so dark that we had lights on in the house all day.
I wondered what it looked like at the top of the hill. Would it still be immersed in fog or would the road rise above it and look down on the fog deck?
A few miles to the south, it was the latter.
I stood by the side of the road, mask on not just for Covid, but to prevent breathing fallout particles 1–2 mm in diameter. White specks were all over my camera. And me. Many clicks occurred. But for an occasional car driving by, it was dead silent.
I said to a guy standing next to me, “This would be beautiful if it were not so ugly because of the conditions responsible for it.” He agreed.
Another guy, an off-duty fire fighter, said, “So this is the future.”
But I went to photograph it, and that’s what I did. With profoundly mixed emotions.
(Nikon D850, Nikon 24-120mm f/4G VR. RAW processing and initial editing in DxO PhotoLab 3.3; Final editing in Adobe Photoshop.)
AMAGA Photography Blog 
Absorbing tbe beauty of your image, I stll hope and pray fires will die out soon. Due to very strong winds (and the hands of evil people) many places on the outskirts of the city were (some still are) on fire. Still nothing remotely near to your fires…
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This is the worst it’s ever been. And near your city too?
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Horrible, my friend. I am assuming you are not in any danger right? Ours was on the ourskirts where there are many small areas with country houses near the sea. Fortunately I hear they’re all under control. The winds though are still very strong…
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Horrible. We are not in danger. The areas that are on fire are largely remote. Hard to get to. Hard to contain and control.
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So, I pray for rain…
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Not till November at the earliest.
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No harm praying though… or that it dies out soon.
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No harm at all, and I am.
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Oh dear oh dear…..I have no more words.
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I will tell you, it was the strangest feeling. And it was shared by those around me. Today is not so orange. But the air quality index is 157.
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Yes, apocalyptic, good choice of word. And also “So this is the future.”. Who knows? Very good to hear you two are safe.
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Thank you very much. Yes we are safe. I’ll be glad when fire season is over.
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That’s good to hear! 🙂
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🙏
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The word apocalypse means literally an uncovering, so it’s ironic that in your apocalyptic view smoke and fog covered the land.
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Ironic indeed.
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I remember in Oman on Jebel Shams (@ 10,000ft – after Gulf war 1) watching magnificent sunsets due all the oilfire pollution.
Nature has a way of reminding us how insignificant we are: it will still be here when we are long gone.
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Yesterday while I was making this photograph I was talking with a woman who was born in Iran and lived there during the first gulf war. She told me about sky that was black with smoke at noon.
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She was absolutely right, during the first days when all the wells were alight, air pollution was dreadful.
It took maybe two years before the polution dropped to what passes as normal.
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Edwin Starr was right.
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“Absolutely nothing” and it has been the same since 1945. Maybe the Korean war was justified, but the rest – follow the money.
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Bob Dylan was right. Masters of War.
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You may have seen this collection of images from the Smithsonian Magazine; they’re unworldly.
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Thank you. I have not seen these, but I’ve seen others. Plus the ones I took in my yard. This is indeed what it looks like. Not as orange today, but our AQI is in the purple. Click on the Instagram link in my post.
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It is hypnotic in a way. Like watching the earth die.
Stay masked, Michael. My lungs have not been the same since our Aussie bushfires.
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Thank you very much. Yes we are staying masked when we go outside, and we go outside as little as absolutely possible.
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Tough times, and no relief for a while. The color around SF is so eerie. We’ve been stuck in the unhealthy realm up here all day and probably won’t see a change until late Sunday or Monday. The birds seem to have hunkered down somewhere – the feeders have been very quiet for days (except for the hummingbirds – such hardy souls!). 10% of Oregon’s population has been ordered to evacuate. Let’s just hope that there aren’t many more lives lost.
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It’s pretty grim here in terms of AQI. We are simply hunkered down because really, that’s all we can do. Our governor today made some statements that were some of the most unvarnished I have ever heard. Look up what he had to say today.
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Sorry – there are too many things to wade through to find that statement, wherever it might be. We’ve been in the 200’s since last night. It’s yellow out there. Weird.
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Here you go. https://deadline.com/2020/09/frustrated-california-governor-gavin-newsom-surveys-fire-zone-rips-ideological-bs-around-climate-change-absence-of-national-leadership-1234575502/
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“You can exhaust yourself with your ideological BS. We are not going back to the 19th century”…”We can’t just change lightbulbs. We also need to change leadership”…good stuff. Thanks, Michael.
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Of course, using the same metaphor, the current national “leader“ is a dim bulb. I’m being charitable, because it’s Sunday.
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Thinking about our friends over there. x
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Thank you. 🙏
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A friend of mine looked out the window on the orange morning and was so terrified by it that she kept the blinds shut all day and never took a peek out.
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I’m sure she was not alone.
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