I am about 4 miles West of the fire. The air was pretty bad with a pronounced darkening similar to the smoke from the forest fires last year.
No falling ash.
For those who know the area, it was across the side street from Gartner's Meat Market.
As soon as I noticed it I went in and turned off the furnace so no air was drawn into the house.
It lasted for several hours until the wind picked up blowing to the SW. It helped the air quality, but it still burned your eyes and throat a bit when outdoors.
The wind died by about 6pm and the smell returned, but not as strong.
Things are much better this morning.
As soon as I saw the smoke I tuned into a scanner app and listened to the Portland Fire activity. It took them awhile to order the evacuation and longer to have the Red Cross offer to come in to setup a shelter.
Listening to the broadcast it seemed they were competent, but not overly prepared to deal with the size of the problem. They ran out of foam and were debating on the radio as to where to direct the suppression effort and what to use.
They did mention several times the need for all the responding trucks to go through decontamination. I wonder if they will order the same for surrounding vehicles, homes and businesses.
Also discussed was where to direct the runoff from the water and the need to shut down the storm runoff system.
Good warning that something can happen nearby and force you to either evacuate or hunker down.
