Michelle Brazil’s 5-year-old son, Emmett, stopped playing last weekend and turned to her. He smelled smoke.“That’s campfire. That’s good smoke,” she reassured him. “It’s OK now.” But even good smoke brings back the memories of the Almeda Fire, which.
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The Mountain West always felt like home for Judith and Doug Saum. Until recently, they lived in the hills above Reno, Nevada.
“It was with a view of the Sierra [Nevada Mountains] that was just to die for,” Judith said in an interview. “We had a lot of friends, musician friends, we d get together and play music with them often. It wasn t easy to leave all that.”
The Saums had been thinking, several years ago, of moving when they retired – maybe to Colorado, or Montana to be near Doug s parents. But around that time, they were also noticing a change. Wildfires in the increasingly hot western summers were becoming a serious threat to their home and health.