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"Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky," - Deep Purple
There's a smell I occasionally get a whiff of when the damper on the fireplace is open and I'm sitting on the short couch in the living room.
It's the smell of charred wood -- an aroma that's pleasant around a campfire or inside the house when a fire is crackling in the fireplace, especially when there's a winter storm blowing outside.
That breath of a draft coming through the fireplace, though the burned wood and ashes, reminds me of the last fire we had or those yet to come. It's a nostalgic type of scent a lot of people love.
Smoke is a precise type of aroma that hits your nose and goes right to your head. It's immediately identifiable. I've been smelling it a lot over the past few days, but not where or when I'd expect it.
When I got up this morning, I could smell smoke the minute I turned the corner into the kitchen. I couldn't immediately tell where it was coming from.
I looked at the stove.
Nothing there.
I glanced outside the kitchen window and saw my view of the backyard obscured by white-gray smoke hanging in the air and dripping off the trees like fog.
It was then I remembered the reports I'd heard the day before about smoke expected to hang over the entire region for at least a couple days.
The smoke was coming our way from numerous wildfires raging in other parts of the Great Lakes region to the west and north of us.
Last night, I had forgotten to close the kitchen window before I went to bed. That left the smoke that arrived overnight right into the kitchen. I quickly shut the window.
When I lived in southern California, the infamous L.A. smog -- fog, smoke and other pollutants -- of Los Angeles was often slung over the freeways and obscured clear views of the San Gabriel Mountains and Mount Wilson on many days.
However, the sunlight shining through the dirt particles in the air also produced fiery orange and red sunsets that stunned and mesmerized residents and visitors alike.
When wildfires erupted in Eaton Canyon and the Pacific Palisades in January 2025, aided by the Santa Ana Winds, I was heartbroken to see this horrifying destruction on the television news.
I love California and I love Los Angeles. I used to hike, birdwatch and visit the nature center in Eaton Canyon over the many years I lived out there. The Pasadena Audubon group I was a part of met in the auditorium there for programs.
I worked with the nature center director in banding western screech owls in a historic oak grove which sat up off the edge of a dry arroyo. We put up birdhouses for the owls, and I would often listen and watch for them at night.
When I saw the fires on television, I thought about those birds and the bird houses. I resigned myself to the understanding that the houses were no doubt burned and the current generation of those owls likely also perished.
The winds and the scenes from those fires were unimaginable.
In all - between the Eaton Canyon blaze and the Palisades Fire -- a total of 31 people died and nearly 16,000 structures burned. I've wanted to go back out there to revisit the area, but I think it would be overwhelmingly heartbreaking.
The smoke I smelled this morning reminded me of those fires and it cast a pall over my day. The smoke in my backyard was thicker than L.A. freeway fog.
I also wondered what the birds and animals were thinking.
Crows were making a strange croaking kind of sound from the backyard trees this morning and neighborhood dogs were barking uncharacteristically.
Did they smell the smoke and think there was a fire burning nearby?
Where were the deer and the rest of the usual birds this morning?
Were they hiding or nervously getting ready to flee should they see flames?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but it's clear the animals must have smelled the smoke. Their instincts must have put them on edge. I doubt they would be able to understand those blazes were hundreds of miles away.
They were probably jittery all day long.
A few days ago, a friend let me know about some shocking bad news.
The house I once owned and lived in along the Lake Superior shore, after returning home to Michigan from California, burned down.
I was crushed hearing this. That house was small, but it was the site of a whole world's worth of good times.
My dad helped me build horseshoe courts and a woodshed there. In his retirement, my dad used to come down to the house while I was at work, cut the grass and enjoy sitting out in the yard by the lake.
I played football in the yard out there with my kids. My brother and mom visited me there. I swam in the big lake, loved the screened porch and the back deck.
That place gave me the best experience I've ever had with the northern lights. Tree frogs used to stick themselves to the house on rainy nights. There were wolves, bobcats, bears and gray foxes out there.
My list of birds I'd seen in my yard topped 110 species. I used to love watching the iron ore carriers moving across the lake past the house, with the lights of Marquette twinkling off in the distance.
Unfortunately, I had to leave that place when I got divorced. The wife I'd married in California moved back out there after our years together in snow country.
I kept a set of house keys in the console of my pickup truck for many years. I've dreamt about that house continuously since I've left.
Earlier this week, I walked down the old and now grown-in driveway to the burned-out house, past a half-burned piece of paper laying in the grass that had likely floated and landed there during the fire.
There was a tree growing in the front yard that I didn't recognize. Beyond it lay what was left of the house. The smell of wood smoke found my nose.
It was a crippling sight to see.
The woodstove remained, and so was the chimney, along with some of the house's foundational elements. That was about it.
I could still visualize the room divisions and where things once stood.
I don't know who the owners are, but my heart bleeds and cries for them.
I'm so sorry they've suffered this terrible loss.
I took a few pictures as proof. I still cannot believe this has happened.
The Platters once sang, "When you're heart's on fire, smoke gets in your eyes."
That's how I feel to my core. It's so sad.
The woodshed was still there, so were the horseshoe courts. My old bird-feeding station was gone. So was my ex-wife's hand water pump and flower garden.
Ironically, the day I visited what was left of the house was her birthday.
How strange.
Ashes to ashes, up in smoke.
None of this does anything to clear up my confusion and questions about life, how it works, what it means and where we're all going.
It just gives me more things to wonder about.
My question of the week is "How much loss is enough?"
I know things are constantly changing and that's supposed to be for the better.
There's just so much loss people are expected to shoulder here in this world.
Every day it seems increasingly like the whole world is on fire.
Looking out my office window, I can see that wildfire smoke packed thick over the waters of Lake Superior, it looks like fog.
I can smell the smoke even inside the building.
I'm on the other side of the big expanse of water today.
Somewhere out there, through all that smoke on the big lake, maybe even directly across from where I'm sitting, are the ruins of my old house, blackened and charred.
Meanwhile, my brother sits in Canada, not far from some of the wildfires we're seeing and smelling and breathing down here.
Out west, in the Golden State, it's fire season year-round these days.
The Elephant Fire, which has been burning since July 11, is over 15,000 acres and is 42% contained. It's the largest of many blazes burning across the state.
I headed home now.
When I get there, I plan to send up a prayer for the animals, the woods, the owners of my old house and all of us down here.
I'll send it up -- like smoke.
Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan's world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.