Our Smoky Dawn — The Canadian Forest Fires

The sun rose in a smoky, yellow sky.

I woke up at 4:30 AM this morning because of a strong smell of smoke and kerosene. I tried to wake up my new husband by saying, "Smoke! Honey, there is a fire somewhere!" But there was no response. So I got up and checked everywhere inside the house, including the furnace and wood stove. I went outside in the cold dawn and checked the forest, the wood pile, I checked everything. The kerosene smell came and went. But the wood fire smell, as if an entire campground started their fires in order to cook breakfast all at once, continued and at times intensified. Finally at 5:45 AM, John got up and reminded me of the forest fires in Quebec. "Ohhhh," I said. "Thank goodness." That was an unfortunate choice of words, because many people in Quebec are suffering and working hard to stop the fires. But I was relieved to have confirmed that there was no fire here. In Portland, Maine the fire department is getting an unprecedented number of calls because of people fearing a fire nearby.

Conditions in Montreal are much worse than here.

Here is a map I made from the resources at https://nofc1.cfsnet.nfis.org/mapserver/cwfis/index.phtml. The red states are New England. The yellow star is where we live in Vermont.

The moon this morning in the western, hazy sky.
Waning gibbous moon, 88% of full

_/\_/\_