Smoke can be unbearable. When I was younger often I could just close up the house or apartment where we lived and this might work if the smoke didn't get too bad. But, now that I'm older if there are fires and smoke blowing through Mt. Shasta I have to actually leave that place because I'm no longer adapted to the altitude and I can't breathe right there if there is enough smoke in the air anymore at age 77.
My wife and I went to Lake Tahoe in our motor home but decided to stay at Granlibaken instead with our daughter who was pretty young then so this must have been between 2003 and 2009 sometime.
So, because I had lived in Mt. Shasta I knew that when there is smoke in the air you don't do anything at all because of the altitude and Lake Tahoe is 6000 feet most places whereas Mt. Shasta City is only about 3500 feet in elevation. However, I knew you don't do anything at all in the smoke because you are going to wind up in the hospital on oxygen (and that's only if you are really lucky to get that kind of help).
So, I told my wife I wasn't going to unload our car and walk our luggage up 3 flights of stairs because the smoke was too bad. She because she hadn't had my experiences with smoke and fire at altitude didn't believe me and began unloading and carrying everything up three flights of stairs to our hotel room.
Well. This didn't work because soon she couldn't breathe. However, luckily there were firemen there putting out the fire and my daughter and I walked up to a fireman and told him my wife couldn't breathe from the smoke. They called an ambulance and she spent the night in a hospital on oxygen and was very embarrassed she didn't listen to me. However, my wife is a very empowered woman with 3 degrees including a master's degree in Business and is going to do things her own way. So, after telling her the problem if she wasn't going to listen to me I realized she was going to have to learn this the hard way.
Because when people won't learn their lessons the easy way there is no other alternative than the hard way.
Most of the time here in California the winds blow on shore from the ocean so even though I live within a mile of the ocean 99% of the time or more there is never any smoke here from fires in California.
HOWEVER, there is also something called Santa Ana Winds that are mostly in the southern Part of the State but can also come further north off the deserts that blow out to sea. These winds at 50 to 100 miles per hour or more are usually what kill people in fires in California when they happen together. So, if you come and visit California and these Santa Ana Winds are blowing and there's a fire be sure you are NOT downwind of these fires in these winds or else you soon could be dead. (especially if you are in a traffic Jam when the fires jump your freeway.)
