Where there is smoke, there is fire (hundreds of miles away)

When I emerged from the house today I was immediately assaulted by an unpleasant odor. I looked around and the sky was gray. Visibility was limited. Oh great, I thought to myself. That idiot Chip is burning beer cans and washing machines again. My neighbor has, in the past, had a bad habit of getting drunk and burning household trash. His household trash isn’t old newspapers and cast off wood furniture. No, Chip’s household trash, historically speaking, has consisted of metal implements and aluminum cylinders.

This time, I was wrong. I had to go into the nearby town of Jasper for bullets. Chip had no smoldering fire going. Neither did Sam, the guy up the hill; the same guy who shot one of my dogs through the face with a 22 rifle while I was in Iraq.

The smoky, stinky conditions didn’t change during the 20-mile trip into Jasper. It was surreal. In the six years I’ve lived in the North Georgia foothills, I have never seen visibility so limited during what would otherwise be a clear day. I got into town and asked why everything was so overcast. The girl making my latte at Starbucks told me that two fires in Georgia had joined together.

I guess a 700 square mile fire can drift a ways. Today made me wonder how my wife and I would cope if the woods around here ever went up. It’s pretty dry this year and we would have to try and evacuate our 18 dogs (we rescue them.)