As with large swaths of the rest of the upper North America, the DC area got a return of wildfire smoke this week. It sort of hit Thursday, then it really hit on Friday. When I went out to drive to the Metro you could clearly see the haze in the air just looking down my short block. Smacked the ‘recirculate air’ button on the car AC as I headed out. At the Metro parking lot I got out, took a whiff of the charred smell and promptly put on a COVID mask, which actually helped a lot with the smell. Took it off once I got inside the train car, and noticed the smell fading as we rode through the tunnels through most of the District on my way to Virginia.
But each time the train exited a tunnel into the open air, the smoke smell returned.
The views on bridge over the Potomac were surreal. Couldn’t clearly see anything past the two bridges on either side of the Metro bridge – the airport was out of sight, as were any of the memorials and monuments, normally clearly seen in the background. It wasn’t quite as bad once I got down to Alexandria as it had been up at home in Maryland, but it was still pretty bad. The ride home in the evening was more of the same; Maryland was worse, and the smell persisted.
Today we went out shopping for some needed polo shirts for me and it was still hot and smokey. Big rainstorms on the drive home seem to have driven most of it away, however. Am hoping they’re able to take care of the source fires soon, for the sake of the local communities up in Canuckistan, as well as everyone else’s lungs.