My house stinks like smoke.

I spend most of my time upstairs, so I honestly didn't really notice at first. There's been an odd sour smell in the house for the last few days, and I couldn't pinpoint it. But I went downstairs to let Zander out and I could SMELL SMOKE. Which I think is one of the worst things you could probably smell at 10pm. But after a thorough examination of the house, I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. So I let Zander out.

And as soon as I opened the door, there it was. Haze. And I have this brilliant moment of, "Oh yeah, there's fires west of us. Guess I should check on that."

So we are expected to have smokey skies, smells, and even falling ash over the next few days. Fires have reached south of Missoula, and I'm in Great Falls. They've evacuated counties in Montana as of today.

Sigh. I feel terrible for all those already affected and evacuated. I hope we aren't next. My first wildfire evacuation isn't something I want to experience this week.

Yeah, when we had those crazy bad CO fires my dogs could barely go outside without hacking... It was terrible. Luckily that smoke only lasted a few days.

I remember that choking, snagnet smell of smoke a few times when I lived in Idaho. They were having fires in Montana and also, I think in Canada at that time and it was drifting over Priest Lake. It's awful and ominous because you know that others are being hit worse and all the wild animals in the forest are suffering if they can't move out. There's no escape if the wind doesn't make it go away. I hope it doesn't get worse where you are. It surely would be worrying if you have to evacuate. Lots of vibes being sent to you and all those who are being evacuated.

This was posted by a local news station. I think more evacuations have been ordered. Missoula is only three hours from us.

We have a wildfire west of our city that jumped a river and a major highway. Only one home was lost I believe but a town right on our outskirts, a trailer park and a camp ground were evacuated. There's another fire south of us near coutts though that evacuated a town down there. It's crappy, was only about 8-9 months since the last gnarly wildfire here. Last time it was a sweat lodge gone awry and this time it was a downed power line. Of course it was combined with nasty nasty winds.