Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

The Copper Mountain Fire to the east of my cabin is now up to 673 acres, but so far it poses no serious danger other than smoke.

It gets going during the heat and low humidity of the afternoons.

Then it calms down over night and looks like this in the morning.

The winds were blowing most of the smoke to the east, but now they've calmed, letting it settle in the valley.  This is late afternoon.

Actually it doesn't matter anymore what the wind does because there are big fires all around.  Yesterday the Health Department declared the air quality in the entire Bitterroot Valley is unhealthy, so we're all supposed to stay inside and keep working on whatever books we are trying to finish (I'm paraphrasing here).

Temperatures are higher and the humidity is lower than normal due to a high pressure ridge, so the smoke is expected to stick around for at least another week.