Smoke from the wildfires in Washington and Oregon have spread across the US, causing air quality to drop to unhealthy levels.
Wildfires have been raging in Washington and Oregon since September 2019. The fires have been burning so intensely that they have caused air quality to plummet across the US. The smoke has even reached as far as Europe, with officials in London warning residents of poor air quality on October 28th.
Why is there smoke outside?
The fires began burning on September 5th and are still going strong. They are currently being blamed on arsonists, who are using them as a cover for illegal marijuana farms.
What is causing the smoke?
“Burning Marijuana”
- “Burning marijuana” is a colloquial term used by law enforcement officials to describe an illegal practice of setting fire to large plots of land in order to clear them for growing marijuana plants.
In this case, it appears that arsonists are using the wildfires as a cover for their own operations. By setting fire to large plots of land, they can then clear it out for their own use and begin growing marijuana plants without drawing suspicion.
In order to avoid detection from law enforcement agencies, these people will often set fires during times when law enforcement officers aren’t around or when they’re distracted by other incidents.
This means that wildfires can be very hard for law enforcement agencies to deal with because they can’t be sure if someone has deliberately started them or if they were just accidents.
