I'm a non-smoker, yet I smoke

[Chrisgoesflying]

Not sure where y'all are located but here in Canada, these wildfires this year are, well, wild. It's the first month of fire season and wildfires already burned 2,000 x the area it burned the entire last year in Alberta. It's been smokey for weeks. I was going to pick up my new to me Comanche yesterday, got there, went up for a pattern and lost sight of the runway without ever leaving the pattern. The broker who went with me is instrument rated and knows the area so no big deal, we made it back to the runway but it's rather annoying. Going from snow, cold and storms to smoke and nothing but smoke. Today's forecast is sunny and warm, yet, I haven't even seen the sun all day due to that thick layer of smoke. How are things in your neck of the woods?

 

[Sac Arrow]

Welcome to California in the summer.

 

[GeorgeC]

Not too bad.

 

[Oldmanb777]

My parents spent WW2 living in Edmonton. My dad flew for ATC. Mom flew some as well while there. Anyway, I remember them telling of weeks of thick smoke from the fires. My Dad was a heavy smoker, and kidded about not needing to buy cigarettes.

 

[kath]

In all seriousness, @Chrisgoesflying ... I'm planning a through-Canada flight in about a week from now. We would vastly prefer to follow our usual route along the Alcan to the east side of the mountains at Fort Nelson and then southeast from there... but this whole Alberta fires thing has us thinking that might be a bad idea. Appreciate any Pireps! Is the smoke getting better or worse with time?
(And remind me where exactly you are! PM's are OK too.)

 

[RyanB]

It was bad here today. I flew to Nashville and the trip home after dark felt like I was IMC at some points.

 

[Chrisgoesflying]

In all seriousness, @Chrisgoesflying ... I'm planning a through-Canada flight in about a week from now. We would vastly prefer to follow our usual route along the Alcan to the east side of the mountains at Fort Nelson and then southeast from there... but this whole Alberta fires thing has us thinking that might be a bad idea. Appreciate any Pireps! Is the smoke getting better or worse with time?
(And remind me where exactly you are! PM's are OK too.)

It's bad. Real bad. Yesterday I was in Alberta (near Red Deer) to pick up the new plane and it was terrible. Doesn't seem to get any better, especially not northwest of Edmonton. There maybe an hour or so of breaks in random areas throughout Alberta but it seems like right around the Edmonton area, basically between Edmonton and the mountains, it's like a wall of smoke that doesn't move as the first just produce more of it. I use this map to see how the smoke is moving: https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/

 

[mandm]

Stay safe

 

[Racerx]

Completely unrelated but I always find it funny when people say "new to me" to describe an airplane model that hasn't been produced in 51 years. Although it would be pretty cool if they did make new ones.

Stay safe. Hoping for some rain.

 

[SebIp]

And this is one of the reasons transport will give for their proposed change to what VFR mean up here..

 

[hindsight2020]

Completely unrelated but I always find it funny when people say "new to me" to describe an airplane model that hasn't been produced in 51 years.

Um...welcome to the hospice that is our hobby? All we do here is shift beds within the ward my man. Mostly to make it look like there's "new" things to look forward to, for the benefit of our terminal Alzheimer's crowd who still thinks it's 1996 fleet-support wise. Are you new?

 

[NealRomeoGolf]

So I guess those fires are why vis sucked in Illinois over the weekend?

 

[kaiser]

It was bad here today. I flew to Nashville and the trip home after dark felt like I was IMC at some points.

I flew through your hood down and back on the Bahamas trip in March and I was shocked…. SHOCKED I say, at how many fires and how much smoke there was. One of my fuel stops was reporting 6sm viz where everything else was CAVU and I thought for sure it was an error until I get there. I smelled like a wood fire for the rest of that trip.