Where there's fire, there's smoke

...and there's been a pretty big fire in southeastern Georgia. Even though I'm nowhere near that, I've still been affected these past few weeks:

May 21st I walked out of my apartment into the hallway and smelt wood burning which could only imply that a raging fire would soon consume my apartment, bedroom, computer, and my music library built since 1999 contained therein. Not seeing smoke or hearing a fire alarm (or cries of help), I went to my patio just to be sure and it was smoky outside, too. So, I thought maybe it might be the apartment complex next to mine. I walked outside and it was smoky everywhere and really smelled strong, and I wondered if it really wasn't wood burning but maybe a car on fire (I've seen several accidents at the intersection near my place, including a biker getting hit my a car, and have accepted my death will likely occur crossing that street one day). As I get around the corner of the grocery store, but see no blazing automobile, but *all* of the downtown is in a cloudy haze, and the smell is very strong I figured whatever it was, it had to be big, such as perhaps a plane had crashed at the airport because it was incredibly smokey. You see, at this point, without evidence of a burning apartment, I was willing to accept that burning jet fuel (an an exploded car wreckage) would share the scent reminding me of childhood summers making s'mores. There was no panic on the subway, no talking about "the tragedy" between strangers. Could they not smell it? Getting off the train, it was also very smoky downtown: the tops of the skyscrapers were all clouded out. At the school, I got on the Internet and learned that winds had carried the smoke from forest fires in southeastern Georgia all the way to Atlanta.

If you imagine the state, these fires are on the exact opposite side, but one could imagine the scale of the blaze because the smoke permeated my building such that I thought it was on fire, even when the real fire was hundreds of miles away! So far away, this was even health problem for some people, that morning a lot of elderly people were wearing surgical masks. It was pretty much gone by that afternoon, but there would be more days in the future when the odor was again in the air. I'm in good health, and even I found the air heavy. How were people breathing that were closer by?

Tropical Storm Barry graced the southeastrn portion of the state with its purifying rains yesterday, and I haven't seen anything on the news but wonder if the fire was diminished. I actually thought there might be more smoke from the extinguishing of the fire, but nothing has blew this way today. It's amazing how the wind can carry scents so far away. Did rural Europe/Japan smell the devastation of WWII bombings of major cities? They say wind carried radioactive participles into cow's milk hundreds of miles away from nuclear explosions (I can't recall exactly who "they" are). With a strong enough wind, the world has been small long before what we call globalization.