Apocalypse.

We almost made it. Through the fire season, this year, so it seemed. Until Labor Day, when two fires that had seemed far away, distant, suddenly crept in. They kept creeping, closer. Last Thursday, I had spent the day north, in the little town of Omak, further from the fires. Driving south back home, we passed Entiat where we entered another world, a different realm. It was like nothing I had experienced, even given the wildfires we've witnessed in the seven years we've lived here and no further than a couple miles from home.

The light was like Mars. 

When I got home and walked into the kitchen, our normally soft glow incandescent lights looked a harsh white. It was surreal. Clearly visible to the north, the Lower Sugarloaf Fire spewed a tower of thick and brutal smoke. Out of sight behind the mountains to the west, smoke from the Labor Mountain Fire cast an apocalyptic shadow across the sky. Ash, once the bulks of stout trees standing proud, swirled through the air and fell from the sky like snow. 

I won't soon forget the day that looked like hell, beautiful and terrifying.