Former Lincoln residents in the Pacific Northwest: 'It's like a horror movie outside … like we're living on another planet'

Every day for the past week, Mary Sue Papale has added something to her morning routine.

Check the air-quality index.

"Normally, we had good air," said Papale, who grew up in Lincoln and moved to San Francisco in the 1980s.

Good air would mean a low number, like 5 or 10 or 20 or 30. Lately, the reading for her San Francisco neighborhood has approached 180 parts per million of pollution.

"We really haven't had this kind of air quality since I've been out here."

That's changed with the record-setting wildfires that started in Northern California two weeks ago and have now burned through millions of acres across the Pacific Northwest.

"It's been really bad since the Oregon fires," she said. "The last four or five days, it's gotten worse to the point where they were recommending not going out unless you have to."

Ash-darkened skies, burned-out cars and homes, fleeing campers and residents, exhausted firefighters, 35 confirmed deaths and dozens of fires, causing smoky air as far east as New York, have dominated news for more than a week.

Last Wednesday, photos of the Golden Gate Bridge obscured in an eerie orange haze went viral.

"We didn't have any daylight," Papale said. "So that was disturbing."

These days, the e-commerce shoe entrepreneur limits her outside time to taking the family's puppy to the backyard.

"Even when I go out back with a mask, I get congested, and I'm pretty hardy," she said.

The warp speed of the fires' spread, coupled with the long-term social isolation of the pandemic, have made life particularly hard lately, Kyle Stebbins said.

"Outside was respite," said Stebbins, a freelance video editor from Lincoln who moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2012.

"Everyone was already anxious about the pandemic, and you add this, it's definitely affecting everybody's mood."

For now, Stebbins and his girlfriend are only leaving their respective apartments for necessities, masking up and breathing in air that smells like "campfire mixed with a chemical smell."

Stebbins has a small bag packed in case residents are asked to evacuate. His girlfriend's parents, who live in a suburb to the south, were on Level 1 alert for evacuation last week, although so far, they have been able to remain in their home.

"It's like a horror movie outside," Stebbins said. "It's like we're living on another planet."

Wildfires in the West are predictable enough to have a season named after them, but this year drought and heat have combined to set off record -- or near-record -- numbers.

More than 28 wind-fueled wildfires were active in California on Monday, where 16,500 firefighters worked to contain them, according to the New York Times.

Dozens of fires have burned more than a million acres in Oregon and resulted in evacuation orders for 10% of the state. Washington and Idaho have had outbreaks as well.

"There's all this misinformation out about how the fires started," Stebbins said. "It's just sad."

A handful of small fires have been linked to arson, and another fire in California -- that made big news and burned 10,000 acres -- was attributed to a gender-reveal stunt gone awry.

President Donald Trump visited Sacramento, California, on Monday and cast blame for the fires on poor forest management.

"It will start getting cooler, you just watch," Trump told a California official who challenged him to recognize the role of a changing climate in the fires.

In San Francisco, Papale disagreed.

"People out here in California understand climate change is not debatable," she said. "These are things we were told could happen, and they are happening."

The fires are painfully familiar to Laurie and Mark Baker, who live in Eugene, Oregon, 100 miles south of Portland.

The retired couple left Lincoln 30 years ago and settled in Paradise, California, which was destroyed by fire in November 2018.

They lost their home and nearly all of their possessions after fleeing a wind-whipped inferno that killed at least 86 people and obliterated 14,000 homes and businesses.

After months of living in an extended-stay motel, they bought a house in Eugene, an idyllic forested city of 170,000 along the Willamette River.

"Last Tuesday, we had that yellow sky all day, and it was so frightening," she said. "I packed a few things, but we've never had to really worry about leaving."

Like Papale, Laurie Baker checks the air quality often. On Monday, air pollution levels soared above 500.

"Off the charts," she said. "It's been a solid week since it's been safe to go outside."

Baker can look out her front window and see the dusting of ash over everything, footprints where people have walked.

The couple have already counseled a young couple who lost their home in this year's fires, advising them on the strategies that helped them push forward.

If they were younger, they'd be out handing out food and supplies, Baker said.

"I told Mark I was going to talk to you (a reporter), and he said, 'I don't have anything left. I don't have anything in the tank.'"

Physically, they are fine, she said. They keep a watch on the fires. They are grateful to have a home.

"But as far as emotionally, we are pretty wiped out."

Reach the writer at 402-473-7218 or [email protected].

On Twitter @TheRealCLK

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