Smoke!!!!

The wind has picked up quite a bit this afternoon. Then suddenly about 30 minutes ago we started smelling smoke. When I walked outside the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the west of our little valley are out of sight. The entire mountain range is obscured by smoke.

According to the MODIS Active Fire Mapping Program there are currently two fires burning in the area. One of them is just north of Lake Isabella and the other is across the mountains from us, just south of Porterville. With the way the wind is blowing out there this smoke could be from either of them, or even both. But my money is on the fire north of Isabella.

The cloud layer in this picture is not clouds it is smoke and it spreading out over the entire valley.



Between the trees and the red sun, which is not normal for this area, there is supposed to be a mountain range.



A couple minutes later our new red sun had started dropping below the mountains and we were able to see a little bit of the mountain's profile through the smoke.