I walked out of the house this morning and smelled something burning. My first thought was, “I hope that’s not my AC unit overheating…” Then I thought maybe it was just some of the trees that are starting to bloom. Perhaps they give off a funky smell (like that horribly smelling but beautifully looking tree I saw in Mansfield) and it just resembles a fire. I looked around and also noticed the air was kind of hazy, so I figured someone in the neighborhood was burning something and removed it from my thoughts.

Several hours later, my manager came over to us and told of how when he got to work this morning he thought his tires smelled like they were burning. I realized that I had thought the same thing as I walked past his car this morning. Just before he came to tell us this, he had figured out why it smelled like a campfire outside.

Wildfires. In North Carolina. And we can smell it in Virginia. The haze in the air is the smoke.

That’s just ridiculous.

-j