Killer Texas Wildfires Smelly Smoke

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, I took off to River Legacy Park to ride the mountain bike trail. As soon as I hit the road I was appalled by what the air looked like, as in very very hazy/smoggy with very diminished visibility.

I didn't know what was going on. We were supposed to be getting thunderstorms and the sky looked very strange, I thought this might be some HUGE storm starting up.

Turns out the thick haze was the result of wildfires that sprouted up all over North Texas and Oklahoma yesterday, some of which continue burning today. The air this morning has the acrid smell of burnt grass. It is not a pleasant smell. I have not left my abode yet today, but from my current vantage point the sky looks blue, I'm not seeing a lot of haze.

It was so bad yesterday that flights had to be delayed at D/FW Airport. Fires burned in more than a dozen Texas counties. Thousands of acres burned in the D/FW zone, including forced evacuations west of Fort Worth. Two people near Montague, that's about 80 miles northwest of Dallas, died and their son was injured when a wildfire consumed their home.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality warned that people sensitive to smoke or with respiratory woes should stay indoors. I have neither of those woes, as far as I know. But I do have my windows open and I'm not really liking that burnt grass smell that is wafting through here. But I like the breeze. It's a conundrum.