Gallery Two: 2023

Canadian wildfires. June 1, 2023, NASA recorded that lightning ignited the wildfires in Canada that brought smoke as far south as Maryland in the United States. The smoke touched the ground. The sun but hazy orange ball in the sky. A sea change occurred. Nova Scotia’s wildfires crept into New York, NY and the lower Manhattan business district showed the similar scenes that woke up my fearful instincts. Had the damage been done?

Months prior, March or April of 2023, another image I will be painting, a flash of light around 4 a.m. burst in along the horizon in the dark clear sky. A flash of light that spread across the atmosphere in a split second. I couldn’t distinguish it being lightning or not, as it didn’t touch the ground. I then waited in confusion, counting the seconds until the thunder. Unlike I’ve heard before, low angry rolling thunder growled about 8 seconds later. It lasted just as long. Fearful and in wonder, I heard no rain. A passing storm in the distance, I thought. Maybe something else? It carried, however, the signs of a meteor coming close to Earth. Now, that’s my own observation. Is that what happened? I don’t know for sure.

NASA also said that lightning along with a quite noticeable drought was the cause of these vast pine forests to spark and burn. With climate change elevating our global temperatures, they burned with a fury causing chain reactions around the world for the duration of the summer, the hottest summer recorded on Earth ever.

As of late October 2023, Canada’s remarkable fire season was finally slowing down. Dozens of fires were still out of control on October 24, but winter weather is expected to suppress most of them. However, even winter may not be enough in some cases. Previous research shows that overwintering “zombie” fires in this region have increasingly begun to smolder underground throughout the winter and remerge in the spring as temperatures rise.