I live along the Central California Coastline, between SB and SLO, not in a fire area but have seen smoke and/or red skies before in the distance, but not like this morning.
As I woke before 7am everything was dark in the house, and as I opened the curtains everything in the neighborhood was red, dark red, and the skies to the west were dark red, with blue in the far distant horizon out over the ocean, the same for the north. There was no blue at all to the east, and the south, yikes, was quite heavy and dark.
The whole scene was surreal like I was on a totally different planet, quiet, dark and red.
The redness gradually dissipated over the next couple hours. Now at 11:15 am the skies are dark brown/gray everywhere. This is still a bit unusual, but not as scary as the redness, not because of the fires but due to the strangeness of it all.
Did anyone else notice this?