The Ashes of the Dixie Fire Cast a Pall 1,000 Miles From Its Flames

[marmar]

(NYT) TAYLORSVILLE, Calif. — Captured by an astronaut’s camera, the Dixie Fire appears as a thick and sickening miasma pouring from the earth’s surface. At its center in the eastern mountains of California, the fire is devouring acre after acre of rugged wildland to become the second largest blaze in the state’s history.

But Dixie and other megafires in the West have left a footprint much larger than the evergreen forests they level and the towns they decimate.

Summer after summer, California, a global leader in battling air pollution from vehicles, sends giant clouds of haze filled with health-damaging particles across the country. Even as far as Denver, 1,100 miles to the east, the fire has helped create a pall of noxious smoke during an already scorching summer.

By one measure, wildfires — intensified by drought and climate change — are the largest source of potentially deadly air pollution in California. And in recent weeks, the accumulating haze and smoke from California’s fires and high ozone levels have turned the air in Salt Lake City and Denver into some of the dirtiest in the world, more harmful than Delhi’s or Beijing’s on many recent days. .............(more)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/us/dixie-fire-california.html

[kimbutgar]

1. Ironically the highest number of people signing the recall Newsom petitions came from those areas

Affected by the fire. That part of California is ruby red. They must be furious he has come up there and is sending aid to those areas.