Surrounded by National Park and National Forest Service land, we are dealing with smoky conditions from a number of prescribed burns in the area.

Our mountains ranges disappeared under the smoke from prescribed burns.

We are blessed to live surrounded by a lot of wild lands – the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Pisgah National Forest, and the Blue Ridge Parkway but all of that land requires wildfire management. One activity that the park service and forest service (both state and federal) conduct are prescribed burns. These planned and controlled burns remove the underbrush that can be so deadly in spreading uncontrolled wildfires. And the fires help renew the lands to enhance the wildlife cycle.

The downside is that those burns can bury us in smoke. As you can in the photograph above, our long distance mountain ranges are totally obscured by the heavy layer of smoke in the air.

Hu-Dad watches us carefully in these smoky conditions and insists that we spend a lot of time indoors. Though, since we don’t have air conditioning, that is of minor help.

Hu-Dad? The smoke is following me.