On Monday the AQI (Air Quality Index) for Bend reached 300. That sits in the hazardous range.
Most of the week the AQI for La Pine hovered around 150, which is on the unhealthy scale.
Smoke from the Bedrock Fire has burned over eight thousand acres, fifteen hundred of those in just the last two days, which is the source of all the smoke.
This has become a regular summer condition to the point where we have links to fire and AQI maps on our phones.
Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed a delayed fire season this year and took advantage of it. But that is over for the foreseeable future. So now plans need to be altered to fit the conditions on the ground.
This week we drove west, to the valley and some berry farms. This hot dry summer shortened the season and we wanted to get some Logan and Triple Crown berries.
For lunch we stopped at Princess Creek Day Use and enjoyed the shade of old growth on the banks of Odell lake . . . one of us even did some swimming.
With an eye on the smoke plume forecasts, we are looking for potential spots to escape . . . hopefully there will be some clear skies over a river close by.
Come visit us…. so far we’ve been smoke free.
Looks like this is sticking around … so yes we will make a trip over the mountains… e-mail with details on it’s way