Fire Season Part 4

We got an unexpected holiday yesterday when the president closed down the school at 10 a.m. I got out about 11:30, caught some lunch, and went to check on Ace. Gayle had moved Ace back to his own barn because the air was so much better than it had been the day before and there were no close hot spots from the fire. In fact, once I got off campus, I thought the air was so much better than it had been on Monday that I couldn't figure out why they had closed down school. (AQMD had rated the air really bad, but gave an all-clear for Wednesday.)

I could see smoke occasionally curl up from behind the ridges, but the worst of the fire had moved on to Simi Valley to the west. Ace was settled in with clean water and I gave him his snack before I left. His meal buckets were already for today. We won't be riding for a few days--time to let the air and his lungs clear out. The vet Gayle consulted said the horses will begin coughing, which shouldn't worry us unless it is accompanied by fever. The coughing will get rid of the crap in their lungs, since we couldn't find horsey dust masks to put over their noses. I wish we could have gotten those goggle masks which are put on race horses. The fly masks don't help much, but they were better than nothing for keeping goop out of their eyes.

The wind is down to nothing this morning, but it promises to be very hot with humidity less than 10%, so the red flag warnings are still up. The Senson/Porter Ranch fire is 20% contained, but I can't see any smoke on the San Fernando Valley side of the mountains. This is a good thing.