The Day the Sky Turned Orange

I remember the smell before I remember the sight.

It was the sharp, acrid sting of burning wood — except this wasn’t the comforting scent of a campfire. This was heavy. It wrapped itself around your lungs, making every breath feel like you were sipping ash. My eyes watered, my throat itched, and somewhere in the distance, a dog barked in confusion.

Then I stepped outside.

The sun was still there, technically, but it looked like a dim red marble hanging in a sky the color of rust. Every building, every tree, every street was bathed in an eerie orange glow, as if the world had been dipped in molten copper. The shadows looked wrong. The air felt wrong. It was the kind of color you only see in science fiction movies about the end of the world — except this wasn’t fiction. This was California, September 2020.

A Planet on Fire

That summer, California burned. Not just here — Australia burned, Greece burned, Siberia burned. Wildfires leapt from tree to tree, house to house, devouring everything in their path.
The numbers were staggering: 4.2 million acres burned in California alone. That’s larger than the entire state of Connecticut. Families fled with whatever they could grab in 10 minutes. Animals ran from flames they couldn’t understand. Firefighters worked until their bodies gave out, and still the fire raged on.

Scientists said the wildfires were fueled by a “perfect storm” of conditions — record heat, bone-dry forests, and fierce winds. But beneath all those factors lay the same root cause: climate change. Decades of pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere had turned entire landscapes into tinderboxes.

A Funny Story That Wasn’t Funny

In the middle of this disaster, a friend told me about a guy who tried to barbecue in his backyard. He claimed it would be “ironic” to grill under an already smoky sky. He posted a picture on social media — there he was, flipping burgers, wearing sunglasses against the orange glare, holding a beer.

The comments section lit up:

• “Bro, your grill’s not the problem — the world is on fire.”

• “Congrats, you’re now seasoning your steak with airborne ash.”

It was dark humor, but it revealed something real: when disasters become our new normal, we start treating them like background noise. We meme them. We shrug. We pretend this is just how things are now. And that’s dangerous. Because the more normal it feels, the less urgent it feels to stop it.

Lessons in the Smoke

I remember walking through that orange light thinking: If the sky can look like this and we still don’t change, what will it take?

The truth is, fire isn’t the enemy. For centuries, small, natural wildfires actually kept forests healthy. But what we’ve created now are monster fires — hotter, faster, deadlier than ever. They burn not just trees, but homes, communities, futures.

And here’s the scariest part: if we keep ignoring the warnings, the day the sky turns orange won’t be rare. It will be routine.

But — and here’s the hope — this doesn’t have to be our future. Scientists, Indigenous land stewards, environmentalists, and even everyday people have shown ways to prevent these catastrophic fires: controlled burns, reforestation, renewable energy, and yes, cutting down the very emissions that are heating the planet.

This is just one day in the planet’s diary — but it’s a warning written in smoke.