The unholy trinity of the Dixie, Caldor, and Cache fires are smoking up Bay Area skies, and a Spare the Air alert is in effect for Thursday and Friday.

We all kind of knew that the “Apocalypse Orange” skies were going to come back at some point in late summer, and in some parts of California, they already have. And now, with the long-running Dixie Fire now more than a month old, the Caldor Fire showing “unprecedented” behavior, and the Cache Fire bringing yet another wildfire nightmare to Lake County, the accumulating smoke, ash, and dust brought orange skies back to the Bay Area at sundown Wednesday night, and sunrise Thursday morning.

You may have found a little coat of ash on cars this morning, and the Bay Area Air District has declared a Spare the Air alert that remains in effect Thursday and Friday. That means wood burning is prohibited, and if you smell smoke, you’re encouraged to stay indoors and avoid exposure.

A big contributor here is the Dixie Fire, and as the Chronicle reports, it’s the first fire in state history to cover the entire east-to-west span of the Sierra Nevada mountains. You can see this terrifying fact for yourself in the below image from a NASA satellite. As of last night, that fire had grown to more than 660,000 acres, having grown by about 36,000 acres in just 24 hours, and is still only 35% contained. This now month-old blaze is turning into the “long COVID” of California wildfires.

Meanwhile, the Caldor Fire is now 20 times larger than it was Tuesday, and at the moment, that fire is 0% contained according to Cal Fire data. Nearly 17,000 people have been evacuated from El Dorado County because of that blaze.

The smoggy skies and terrible air are unwelcome, but in the Bay Area we’re certainly more fortunate than those in the affected wildfire areas. For now, the unhealthiness level is “Moderate,” according to the Chronicle’s very helpful California Air Quality Map. In fact, most of the Bay Area is in that yellow “moderate” zone. But everyone realizes the direction this is trending, and it is trending toward orange.

Related: 14 Photos Of San Francisco Landmarks Under a 'Blade Runner 2020' Orange Sky [SFist]


Image: @djbaskin via Twitter