JUNE 30, 2008
Comfortable summer day. No wind, 0 mph. Temp 68 degrees.
Burn duration: This is the accumulation of multiple burns all day long.

At first the smoke may not seem apparent. But replay the video and watch the beginning again. There had been a lot of rain at the beginning of summer 2008 in Oak Grove. We just mowed the lawn. The grass under the air conditioner and the leaves on the trees in the foreground are bright green. In fact, on a clear day, everything looks that bright green. But as the camera turns to look off in the distance, you can see the air is so heavily tinted with smoke in every direction that the trees, the grass, the fields, and even the sky all have a grayish pallor.

Although this is a beautiful 68 degree day with no humidity, our windows are closed to keep out the outside air, which is saturated with smoke. The temperature inside our house builds up into the mid to upper 80's, forcing us to run our air conditioner unnecessarily. This added at least $30 a month to our electric bill during summer and fall for the last several summers.

We were indoors with the windows open when this started, but we did not notice the smoke immediately. By then the odor of heavy smoke, (and we are positive we could smell the thick heavy stench of burning plastic), was strong enough in our house to smell for an hour after we closed the windows. My wife had another asthma attack and I got a pounding headache from the sickening smell. The smoke was strong enough to be irritating to make our eyes burn, and irritate our lungs that evening.

The lengthy burns been going on now for over two weeks, since mid-June. After a string of hot 90 degree days, we still cannot open our windows, even after midnight, because the smoke is so thick. This is ridiculous. Why should we have to put up with this nuisance again and again?
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