Smokey Flavored Air Season Is Unfortunately Here

Last night the forest fire smoke was very heavy. There are several large forest and grassland fires across the state. Some of these remain 0% contained or at best a very low percentage contained/contolled. As such the air quality and visibility is very poor tonight. July and August could be long tough months, especially for folks that have breathing issues.

The auction preview day (Friday) is quickly approaching. We have lined up with the Volunteer Fire Department to bring the small fast response fire truck down here to the ranch. We have no idea how many folks are going to,show up. It is likely that some folks will have to park out in the field South of the house. So there could be the potential for a a grass fire from a catalytic converter. We will try to wet the field down some before people start showing up and have the truck sitting on standby if something were to start burning.

One of the news station posted a graphic (see below) with the 12 seasons of Montana. Well Smokey flavored air season made another appearance last night. We have had a couple of Smokey days, but last night was the worse so far.

I remember in the summer of 2021 it was a bad Smokey flavored air summer. There were times we were wearing masks and it was not to prevent Covid, it was because the smoke was so heavy. There was a couple of days that you could barely see the East Ridge of the Continental divide from the KOA campground. Last night was not quite that bad but it was close.

This morning there is still quite a bit of smoke, but better than it was last night. As it warms up it will probably get bad again.

I hope they get these fires under control. However in some of these areas there is a lot of fuel to burn. So it may not happen until we get some decent rains. Unfortunately, there is not much rain in the forecast, there is the potential for dry lighting storms, which is not good.

Oh well, no matter where you live there is always the potential for some type of bad weather.