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One benefit to living in a high desert spot like Salida, Colo., is clear air. On most mornings, the sky seems so transparent that I feel as though I could count the rocks on 14,421-foot Mt. Harvard, a good 40 miles away.
And when I can't because the sky is hazy, it means there's a big forest fire somewhere. But where? Sometimes I can make an intelligent guess; if the haze is thick to the southwest but thin elsewhere, it generally means some hot times around Durango.
But the current haze appears to blur equally in all directions, so I can't tell where it's coming from. Reading the papers doesn't help.
According to the local Mountain Mail this morning,
Western flow of air brings Utah smoke to valley,
and
the California cloud isn't expected until tomorrow.
But the Denver Post front-page headline tells us that
L.A. fire colors Colo.,
which means the Golden
State's murk is already here, along with some Beehive State
smoke.
Not that it matters all that much here where the smoke
came from, but it does give an ominous feel to what is
normally our most pleasant season, late summer and early
fall, and adds to the worry that the fire next time
might be in one of our dry, jumbled forests.
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