People from San Francisco stretching to Seattle woke up to massive clouds of smoke hanging in the air which darkened the skies in some areas to a reddish-orange glow on Wednesday morning."

Currently, people all around the West Coast have been experiencing bad air quality due to these wildfires. People from Seattle to San Francisco woke up on Wednesday, September 9, 2020,  to hazy red clouds of smoke floating in the air. This strange glow is harming the atmosphere as well as the safety of citizens worldwide. Due to all of the wildfires near the west coast, the smoke blocks out blue rays of light, allowing only the yellow, orange, and red light to come through to the land creating the air to look hazy orange. 

The glow began on these past days due to the excessive amounts of wildfires throughout the West. Social media has been full of pictures and videos of the unusual sky. However, many complain that their cell phones would not accurately capture the photos, turning the photos into a dirty orange mess. 

Despite the orange aura in the sky, there remains a scent of smoke and the air has reached unhealthy limits this past week. On September 10, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District announced the 25th consecutive “Spare the Air” alert, requiring a resident to cut the pollution. The district believes the winds from the Pacific Ocean will push the smoke toward the West, worsening the air quality. 

Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Bay Area states that “Everybody wants to know, when is this going to get better, we have to remember as long as the fires keep burning they’re going to continue to produce smoke.” This smoke is also creating safety hazards to the drivers as the California Highway Patrol's Golden Gate division tweeted, “It's after 9 a.m. and there's still no sign of the sun,” urging drivers to turn on their headlights and slow down. 

More than 2.5 million acres of land have been burned in California so far this year, nearly 20 times more than the previous year.“This fire is just burning at an explosive rate,” said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for California’s state fire authority, “You add the winds, the dry conditions, the hot temperatures, it’s the perfect recipe.”

by Jacob Kim