The sky is brown today. The light coming in through the windows is orange. I'm staying in the house because the smoke particles in the air are bad for my asthma. Forty or so miles north of here, the Napa Valley is burning. Twenty or so miles west of the Napa Valley, Santa Rosa is burning, along with a big chunk of Sonoma County. There are 22 fires in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Yuba, Solano, and Nevada counties. The burned area totals at least 170,000 acres; 21 people are identified dead and 670 reported missing; up to 3,000 homes and businesses have burned; and the fires are still not under control. Much of the burn area has no electricity, no phone service, and no Internet.
How did this happen? Even for California's fire season (in other words, October), this is bad.
