Smoke from the California fires blots out the sun, ruins air quality, and gives the Bay area a bizarre glow

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November 16, 2018 1:15 PM

The California fire has killed 66 people so far, and smoke from the blaze has travelled over 200 miles to some Bay Area cities, carried on winds.

The Camp Fire has been moving across California since November 8, and 66 people are dead.

Thick wildfire smoke from California's Camp Fire is being blown across the state and blotting out the sun.

As well as making the sun a blurry orange mark in the sky, temperatures are dropping by 10 degrees in some places, the US National Weather Service told Bloomberg on Thursday.

This is because the smoke is so thick "it prevents the sunlight from reaching the surface. It prevents surface heating," Meteorologist Hannah Chandler-Cooley from the US National Weather Service Sacramento told Bloomberg.

The Los Angeles Times' Sacramento Bureau chief John Myers shared this picture of Sacramento's Capitol draped in smoke from California's deadliest wildfire, 88 miles away from the town of Paradise.

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Others pointed out the sun had turned red because of the smoke:

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Smoke drifting from the wildfire which destroyed Paradise traveled nearly 200 miles to San Francisco.

Smoke clouded the sky in San Rafael, in the San Francisco Bay area, over 150 miles from Paradise.

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And Oakland saw a shrouded sun too:

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The smoke has also affected air quality in northwestern California. The National Weather Service Sacramento tweeted the air quality was "very poor" across much of the region.

On Thursday, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and Kern counties were placed under an "air quality alert" telling people to "avoid prolonged exposure, strenuous activities, or heavy exertion," by order of The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.

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