Picture this...

[dantesspirit]

You're on the verge of sleep, just about to drift off into a deep sleep, when suddenly, you snap wide awake.

Sniff the air. Frown, sniff again.

Then, carefully wake Mark to see if he smells what you smell. He asked what you smelled.

Smoke, you say. You smelled smoke. Burning wood and leaves.

Mayhem, across your legs, stretches out a paw, lazily saying, don't move, so Mark gets up and goes to look, to make you feel better.

The house is fine. The property is fine. The neighbors are fine.

The scent fades and wafts away. mayhem stretches, gets up and ambles off. goofy floofy boy

You fall asleep.

* * * * * * *

That was my night.

We have Several Wildfires in counties nearby right now.

The weekend was bad as far as smoke went, the windy conditions didn't help.

So apparently, the winds changed last night, and the smell managed to drift into the house. Fun.

Comments

ugh, I’m sorry

[tarasacon]

my paranoia brain would be going crazy from that!

Re: ugh, I’m sorry

[dantesspirit]

If Mark hadn't been willing to go look, I'd likely have had a full blown anxiety attack.

Bad enough we now have a brushfire in Thaxton, in my County.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Back in the Torn World shared world, a major thread was the Itadesh Fire, which wiped out a village and the handful of people who had stayed behind instead of going to the summer gather. ellenmillion explained that, when you live somewhere that always has fires in summer, you just stop alerting to the smell of smoke. That's how it is in Alaska, and the setting was inspired by that.

Re: Thoughts

[dantesspirit]

We had a house fire in 1994, where we lost nearly everything. I doubt I'll ever stop alerting to the smell of smoke.

Re: Thoughts

[tarasacon]

I’ve helped friends clean the possessions left after a house fire. It’s tedious and messy work.

Also, no wonder it’s a trigger. I’d have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in nearly every room.

I’m so sorry. *hugs* if wanted.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Alas!

You might consider where you are currently living, and compare that to the fire dynamics. Places affected by wildfires are expanding, and the fire season is already much longer than it used to be.

Re: Thoughts

[dantesspirit]

It definitely is.We actually have a fall fire season now here, instead of just spring. A moderate drought here isn't helping either.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

That really sucks. :(

Here we had a spring so dry, the ephemeral stream from the sump pump never manifested.

About the western third of the USA is prone to wildfires, and that will keep growing in area, intensity, and duration. But the midwest and east are not much prone to that.

Stacked Hazards Map

Separate Hazard Maps