I checked the air quality index at six-thirty. Moderate. My daughter could play outside before school.
By eight it was unhealthy for sensitive groups. The smoke from British Columbia was moving faster than the forecast said. I watched it through the kitchen window—gray haze settling over Bellingham, the kind that makes the morning light look wrong.
I called the school. They were keeping kids inside for recess. I told my daughter. She asked if she could ride her bike after school. I said we'd see what the numbers looked like.
We moved here from Oakland five years ago. The smoke in California was part of why. I'd been watching the wildfire seasons get worse, thinking about what the next twenty years would look like. Bellingham seemed safer. More water, cooler summers, temperate rainforest.
The smoke comes from fires somewhere else now.
By noon the AQI was 167. Unhealthy. I closed the windows, turned on the air purifier in my daughter's room. The filter was six months old. I'd been meaning to replace it. I ordered a new one on my phone. Two-day shipping.
I worked from home. My daughter came back from school and went straight to her room. She didn't ask about the bike. She knew.
The smoke here isn't every summer. Last year was clear. The year before that we had three bad days in August. This year it started in July. Different fires—British Columbia, Eastern Washington, Oregon burning nearly three thousand square miles. But same sky.
I thought about the guy I knew in Oakland who was doing defensible space work around his house. Clearing brush, replacing his roof, spending money on mitigation that might not change his insurance. He was staying. Making the place as safe as he could make it.
I left instead. Moved north. Different bet.
By three o'clock the AQI was 183. Very unhealthy. My daughter asked if we could go to the library. I said tomorrow, probably. She said okay and went back to her room.
I checked the forecast. The smoke would clear by Thursday. Maybe. The models weren't certain.
California had drought and fire. Here we have smoke from fires somewhere else. The insurance market in Washington is still functioning—about four hundred people on the state plan compared to California's 450,000. The water situation is better.
Watching the AQI, keeping my daughter inside, waiting for the smoke to clear.
By evening it was dark enough that you couldn't see the haze anymore. Just the streetlights looking dimmer than usual. My daughter asked if she could play outside tomorrow. I said we'd check the forecast in the morning.
I didn't tell her that the Pacific Northwest is flagged for vulnerability to smoke and heat. That researchers say the cities here are particularly at risk for wildfire. That tree ring data shows huge fires every few hundred years. She's nine. She doesn't need to know that yet.
We check the forecast. We stay inside when we need to. We go out when it's safe.
I replaced the air filter before bed. The old one was gray with particulate. The new one was white and clean. It would last six months, maybe less if we had more smoke days.
I checked the AQI one more time. Still 170. The forecast said it would drop overnight.
I figured we'd find out.