Bay Area

Eerie Apocalyptic Sky in Bay Area Raises Concerns for Residents

Published

5 years ago

September 9, 2020

In addition to smoke from the August fires, the Bay Area branch of the National Weather Service noted on Twitter that lower temperatures and weaker winds compared to the last several days are allowing wildfire smoke suspended in the air to fall closer to the ground, contributing to the sky color change.

People all over the Bay Area woke up Wednesday morning to ominous, orange skies. Street lights stayed on long past what should have been daybreak that — under normal circumstances –would have been a clear, sunny day.

The Apocalypse has arrived in Oakland this is Lake Merritt at 10:30 a.m pic.twitter.com/QhovkvhAq7
— Michelle Dione (@ShelleDione) September 9, 2020

‘Surreal,’ ‘hell,’ and variants of ‘apocalypse’ were terms that peppered conversations on and off social media.

The cause, as reported by Bay City News, is smoke from the August Complex fires in Mendocino County that settled on top of a marine layer in the Bay Area Wednesday, turning the sky various shades of red and orange.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “ . . . [t]he ominous pallor of the skies, experts said, were a product of the plumes of smoke billowing from the historic number of wildfires burning across the state. Wind conditions overnight pushed smoke into lower elevations, filtering sunlight and producing dark tints of red, orange and gray. Still, air quality remained mostly unchanged.”

Bay Area Air Quality Management District spokesman Ralph Borrmann said the smoke is filtering out blue light, giving skies around the Bay Area a red-orange tint.

Borrmann said that while the air district extended its Spare the Air alerts through Friday, air quality is not being adversely affected by the smoke because the marine layer is, in effect, insulating low-lying areas.

Parts of the Bay Area at higher elevations may be more susceptible to poor air quality, but parts of the Bay Area that lie at or close to sea level were not being adversely affected like in previous days. Updates about air quality in the Bay Area can be found at baaqmd.gov.

This writer woke up to ash on my car and lawn and confused about the time of day and why it wasn’t lighter at dawn. By noon on Wednesday, people were still driving with their headlights on. Streetlights that turn off at dawn were still illuminated. People complained of their eyes being irritated.

This writer received a text from a friend, Ange, about “ . . . the impending apocalypse and obvious undercurrent of anxiety” followed by “ . . . seriously though . . . what is with the sky?”

Jim Tang tweeted: “If you told me that I was actually in hell right now, I would believe you.”

If you told me that I was actually in hell right now, I would believe you. Apocalyptic feel to the sky across the Bay Area right now. pic.twitter.com/iQvVbNTylD
— Jim Tang (@wxmann) September 9, 2020

Connie Guglielmo of CNET tweeted “Strange skies over the Bay Area again this morning. Ominous music optional.”

Strange skies over the Bay Area again this morning. Ominous music optional. pic.twitter.com/lkZ88q6rfe
— Connie Guglielmo (@techledes) September 9, 2020

Will Tran of KRON 4 tweeted: “[o]range, dark and ashy bc of wildfires. I was two days away from my 8^th birthday when Mt. St. Helens shook the planet. I’m from Seattle-Tacoma and I remember the sky looked just like this.”

Absolutely no filter involved here. This is the morning sky over San Francisco at 8am. Orange, dark and ashy bc of wildfires. I was two days away from my 8th birthday when Mt. St. Helens shook the planet. I’m from Seattle-Tacoma and i remember the sky looked just like this. pic.twitter.com/zgOkT2Ou5f
— Will Tran (@KRON4WTran) September 9, 2020

(Mount St Helens is an active volcano in nearly 100 miles south of Seattle, Wash. It had a deadly eruption in 1980.)

News reports discussed how residents of Oakland, San Francisco, and the Bay Area were sharing images of the “apocalyptic morning light” as record heat continues to fuel local fires.

Wildfires are changing the weather of an entire region, meteorologists said. And forecasters don’t know when it will end.

“Fires create their own weather,” National Weather Service meteorologist Roger Gass explained, but usually only on a small scale, in areas close to the flames.

The smoke that upended the Bay Area on Wednesday, though, was coming from hundreds of miles away, according to reports from The East Bay Times. Most of it, Gass said, “was likely from the August Complex Fire in the Mendocino National Forest and the Bear Fire in the western Sierra. Smoke from other fires throughout California, Oregon and Washington was also mixed into the massive layer of haze,” the East Bay Times reported.

“We’re having such a large scope of dense smoke across the Bay Area and the West Coast in general, that it’s actually impacting our weather conditions,” Gass told the East Bay Times. “We’re kind of in uncharted territory right now.”

Meteorologists said that the air quality is not as bad as it appears to be, but that is not reassuring to some.

“I woke to an apocalyptic sky, orange haze elicits a sense of dusk rather than day. I’m reminded of all the dystopian books I’ve read. I also sense that we are doomed. The world descending into chaos around me” said my wife, Natalie Devora Monifa.

“I think this weather is a ‘no’” added my 19-year-old daughter, Isabella Bolden-Monifa

“Since the beginning of this pandemic, I’ve been feeling as if I was in an apocalypse. Today’s weather in the Bay Area is ‘outpicturing’ what I’ve been feeling” said another friend, Pamela Grimm.

But for my son, Benjamin Bolden-Monifa, “It’s cool.” My 17-year-old’s favorite color is orange and he wears it daily.

Michelle Snider

Associate Editor for The Post News Group. Writer, Photographer, Videographer, Copy Editor, and website editor documenting local events in the Oakland-Bay Area California area.

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

45 minutes ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System

While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

Published

6 days ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Image courtesy The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.

The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.

“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”

“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”

The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.

Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.

“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.

Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.

Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.

For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.

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Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

7 days ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.