Where There’s Smoke

After a few glorious days at the end of July and into the first days of August, the fogbank that perpetually hovers off the coast moved in. We have been socked in under gloomy, gray skies now for a couple of weeks (though things seem to have lightened up a bit today).

The prevailing gloom was exacerbated by a down pouring of soot and ash.

I go out to my car one morning–and what do you know–but it has been covered by soot and ash.

Where did that come from, I wondered since I had heard no reports of fires nearby.

Turns out the fire is a big one in Los Padres National Forest. The terrain is impenetrable. The fire is at least 50 miles away, but that did not prohibit the wind from dropping soot and ash directly on us. We had a number of days with bad air advisories.

According to the LA Times, the fire was probably started by drug traffickers. That’s the first time I have heard of a fire started by drug traffickers. But apparently some of them were camping out in that impenetrable terrain, either planting perhaps, or perhaps harvesting. That wasn’t clear. But they had a cook fire going, that’s for sure; and that’s what lit up the forest.

I don’t think the forest was ever all that safe, but now one should beware of heavily armed men camping out in the woods. Apparently these traffickers are always armed and many may now work for the Mexican Drug Cartels.

So, anyway it’s been gloomy.

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