It wasn't bad but it was definitely in the air. I wondered how I could be smelling smoke because I had closed any windows last night at 2 am to prevent this. Then I got up and realized my wife had left back door open for the dog to do her business. So, I told her I was smelling smoke so I wanted to close the door because we don't know how bad the Timber fire is going to get. It isn't affecting us much now but we need to prepare if the wind blows towards us from the fire until they get it out. Then she turned on the bathroom fan for the shower and I told her she should turn that off too. She asked if the bathroom fan sucks air in from the outside and I said, "Yes".
Here is why a bathroom fan sucks air in from the outside. Air is like Water only it's air. So, if you are blowing air up out of the bathroom into the attic the air has to come from somewhere else to replace this air and so it comes through any cracks anywhere it can seep through your house so it can get enough air to blow out into the attic of your house. If you understand this you can protect your lungs from Smoke inhalation or other problems especially if you are asthmatic. I'm not asthmatic but I'm 78 years old and I have to protect my lungs from smoke now so I don't have any problems.
For example, I can't stay in Mt. Shasta at this age if there is a fire there because the altitudes there are from 3,500 feet altitude in Town up to 8000 feet where you can drive on Mt. Shasta if the road is open past Bunny Flat at 6900 feet. Usually it can open sometimes for a few months after about July 4th as long as all the snow has melted off the paved road that year. So, for me, I know if there is fire with smoke in the air I have to go to a lower altitude at least as far as Redding or further. And now this time of year Redding is usually over 100 degrees most days so at that point it is almost better to go back to the coast where our home is.
And in the 1950s people didn't usually have Air Conditioners in their cars. We might have had an Air Conditioner in our 1956 Buick but I'm not sure about that now because I was 8 years old then but i know we had an air conditioner in our 1960 Mercury Station Wagon and in our 1965 Chevrolet Impala.
After Mom learned to drive in 1954 all our vehicles like the 1956 Century Buick and the 1965 Chevrolet Impala and all the rest had Automatic transmissions and Air Conditioning likely too. the last vehicle that was stick shift my father bought was a 1960 GMC Electrical Utility body Truck because he was an Electrical Contractor. And I mostly learned to drive that stickshift Truck with 4 forward speeds on the floor which looked like a Capital H Shift pattern. Upper left was compound low which you used only for very steep hills OR to move forward fully loaded on a steep hill in traffic so you wouldn't kill the engine with that much weight on board.
Then the bottom left was first gear forward and the upper right was 2nd gear and the lower right was 3rd gear. It was okay to drive as long as you realized just how much weight you were carrying and how long ti took to get up speed and to stop.
However, I can remember going up a mountain curvy Road called the Angeles Crest Highway to the Deserts of Antelope Valley the other side of the mountains there in Los Angeles Area and going to fast around the corner and the weight sort of jumping to the right so I had to slow down before the truck went off a cliff. However, as a new driver there are a lot of things you need to learn before you die driving too. so, this is important to know really well the eccentricities of whatever vehicle you are driving so you can stay alive driving it.
Like for example, right now it is 90 in Redding but the high today is 97 so you can see what I mean by being around 100 degrees or more any day in August. I have driven through Redding many times now at 111 to 115 degrees or more this time of year in years back to the 1950s when I was a child with my parents who spent time in Mt. Shasta as far back as the 1940s when they lived in Seattle.
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