We visited Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the U.S. It's supposed to be pure and blue in normal sunny days. In early August, there were wildfires to the west of the lake. Till this day, orange smoke is still lingering on the sky. The sun turned red behind the smoke. The lake itself looks pretty even with the smoke though. The air quality somewhat suffered around the lake but not too bad. Many people cancelled their campground reservations, so we got to choose our site among many spaces. It was a quiet and calm night, with squirrels running around occasionally.

I thought, so sad, wildfires are terrible. My friend told me that wildfires caused by the nature are beneficial: they help optimize growth of forests, because as they burn older trees and allow younger trees to get more sunshine. He said, human interventions have actually made it "unnatural ".

Hmm, it's interesting. I never thought about it from that perspective -- I don't have the necessary knowledge or habit of thinking in terms of this. It's more objective that when we mourn for the dead trees from wildfires, think from the nature's perspective.

Below are pics of Crater Lake National Park in the smoke: