Smoke

For days now a local bog - with a jolly name of Burns Bogs - has been burning, and as a result Vancouver, the whole Lower Mainland and even as far as Victoria has been engulfed in smoke.

This far out it comes and goes - it can be like that photo I took this morning when the burning smell was really strong, but although there was a lot of visible smoke in the air visibility was still decent. Or in minutes it can turn into this, a thick all covering smog.

It's really stupid - the bog is an incredibly valuable natural resource to the area, not only is it home to hundreds of rare species of birds and animals, it's also considered to be the lungs of Lower Mainland and responsible for the unusually clean air we normally have here. Now it's burning because some local red neck farmer had threatened to sue if his farmland became flooded, and it had been slightly drained - therefore allowing the peat to dry and now burn: at the moment it's about 200 hectares but fire's far from put out. The problem is that peat can actually burn for months without letting out any visible smoke, therefore it's very difficult to say when fire's been properly put out, and letting firemen go near it is very dangerous. At the moment they are saying it might be weeks before it's completely safe.

Meanwhile, there's smoke. Everything looks dirty.

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