Since we still have a couple of months left to go in the fire season, unless we get some heavy rain, we could still end up getting smoked out, but maybe our luck will hold. Early autumn is the time of year the winds start flowing down from the deserts, though, and they would be likely to carry the smoke of the Dixie fire back into the valley. While it's getting much closer to containment, It probably won't be out for a few weeks yet.
Good news from the southern Sierra is that despite the fires there still expanding, so far none of the grooves of giant sequoias have suffered any known losses. Smaller trees around them have been burned, but the giants have survived. This is very good news, especially considering that the Castle Fire in 2020 destroyed about 14% of the entire species. It could have been that bad again. The major difference is that the groves under threat from the current fires are mostly inside the national park, where they have been protected by fairly regular controlled burns since the 1960s.
But good news hasn't done anything to improve my sleep weirdness. Here I am still awake after seven o'clock in the morning, and not feeling like it will be easy to get to sleep today. I can imagine finally collapsing in an hour or two then waking up around sunset. It won't be pleasant, but there it is. Maybe I'm just not drinking enough beer now that I can't get my favorite porter anymore. Time to break out the brandy, I guess.
